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Turncoat: the origin stories
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Content
TURNCOAT:
The Origin Stories.
by
jen byers
A Thesis Presented to
FACULTY OF THE USC ANNENBERG SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATIONS
AND JOURNALISM
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM)
December 2023
Copyright 2023 jen byers
“The goal of good art us to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”
— Cesar A. Cruz.
ii
DEDICATION
To Alanna, who predicted this.
I love you, always.
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To my mentors and loved ones — you know who you are.
Everything I am is a reflection of you; I exist because of how you made me.
Thank you, for everything.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dedication ......................................................................................................................................iii
Acknowledgements.........................................................................................................................iv
List of Figures.................................................................................................................................vi
Abstract............................................................................................................................................x
Chapter One: How I Became a Journalist........................................................................................1
Chapter Two: Statement of Problem..............................................................................................13
Contemporary Structural Bias............................................................................................13
Historic Bias.......................................................................................................................17
Whiteness as Water............................................................................................................21
Chapter Three: Methodology.........................................................................................................27
Industry Critique of Objectivity.........................................................................................27
Reflections on Objectivity..................................................................................................31
Alternatives to Objectivity.................................................................................................33
Concluding Thoughts on Methodology..............................................................................45
Chapter Four: Putting These Values to the Test.............................................................................47
Locating Myself.................................................................................................................47
Reckoning with Whiteness................................................................................................48
My History.........................................................................................................................49
My Offering.......................................................................................................................58
Chapter Five: Sample Reporting....................................................................................................62
Turncoat: Transmissions from the Underground, ‘Florida’...............................................62
April 2023: Alchemy..........................................................................................................63
How did we get here?........................................................................................................73
Project 2025: A National Threat........................................................................................77
Journalism done fucked up................................................................................................79
What’s coming next?..........................................................................................................83
A long history of eradication, assimilation........................................................................85
So, what do we do?............................................................................................................87
June 2023: Exile.................................................................................................................91
Into the Sunshine State.......................................................................................................98
July 2023: Salvation.........................................................................................................107
References....................................................................................................................................134
v
LIST OF FIGURES
Chapter One ..................................................................................................................................1
Figure 1.1 A protester in a balaclava marching next to a graffiti of “Amerikkka” during a Los
Angeles protest against Trump’s winning the Presidential election. (Photo by jen byers, Nov
2016) ...............................................................................................................................................1
Figure 1.2 Pro-Trump, anti-immigrant protestors in Laguna Beach, CA. (Photo by jen byers,
August 2017)....................................................................................................................................2
Figure 1.3 A moth that offered me a quest in TwentyNine Palms, CA.
(Photo by jen byers, Feb 2016)........................................................................................................3
Figure 1.4 Lines of police officers behind barbed wire with icicles, after spraying Indigenous
water protectors with water at the Backwater Bridge at Standing Rock, ND. (Photo by jen byers,
Nov 2016)........................................................................................................................................5
Figure 1.5 The Cannon Ball River, which was threatened by the Dakota Access Pipeline.
(Photo by jen byers, Nov 2016).......................................................................................................6
Figure 1.6 Alex High Elk holding a barbed wire dream catcher at Oceti Oyate Camp in Standing
Rock, ND. (Photo by jen byers, Feb 2017)......................................................................................8
Figure 1.7 A view of Oceti Sakowin Camp from Media Hill in Standing Rock, ND.
(Photo by jen byers, Dec 2016)........................................................................................................9
Figure 1.8 The media rules were based off of the rules for Oceti Sakowin Camp, shown here.
(Photo by jen byers).......................................................................................................................10
Figure 1.9 Ramona and Oscar High Elk (L), Nathan Phillips (center) and Ray Kingfisher bless
the South Gate of Oceti Oyate Camp, on the day of a planned raid by the Army Corps of
Engineers, Morton County Sheriff's Department, private security and many other U.S.
Government agencies. (Photo by jen byers, Feb. 2017)................................................................11
Chapter Two.................................................................................................................................13
Figure 2.1 A political cartoon from 1881, depicting Irish-American immigrants, like my
ancestors, as sub-human................................................................................................................21
Chapter Four................................................................................................................................47
Figure 4.1 Photos of the Famine Memorial in Dublin, Ireland, symbolizing the mass migration of
Irish people out of Ireland during the Great Hunger. (Photo via Irish Central)............................49
Figure 4.2 A photo of my grandmother, Francis Friel, taken in Philadelphia in the 1930s.........51
vi
Figure 4.3 A photo of my grandmother and grandfather, Thomas Patrick McCafferty, on their
wedding day in Philadelphia the 1940s........................................................................................51
Figure 4.4 A print of John William Waterhouse’s Magic Circle....................................................52
Figure 4.5 A triptych of three Irish goddesses: Morrigan, Brigid and Rhiannon.........................53
Figure 4.6 A photo of my grandfather, Ralph Mauney Byers, and grandmother, Dorothy Mainor
Byers, on their wedding day in the early 1950s............................................................................54
Figure 4.7 A photo of my great-grandfather, James Thaddeus Mainor, in his Masonic regalia.
Likely from the 1910s or 1920s.....................................................................................................56
Figure 4.8 Drawings of my great-great grandparents...................................................................56
Figure 4.9 A photo taken of a dead and decaying cow. Upon seeing this, I reflected on how all
empires fall. (Photo by jen byers, Feb. 2017)................................................................................57
Figure 4.10 A collection of definitions of ‘turncoat.’....................................................................59
Figure 4.11 A collection of definitions of ‘journalist’ and ‘activist.’ ............................................60
Figure 4.12 A collection of a definition of ‘storyteller.’ ................................................................61
Chapter Five.................................................................................................................................62
Figure 5.1 Spike, 2023...................................................................................................................62
Figure 5.2 Trans rights protestors hang flags in the Florida state legislature.
(Photo via Spike, April 2023)........................................................................................................63
Figure 5.3 Spike (R) and three trans rights activists pose with rainbow flags and a sign.
(Photo via Spike, April 2023)........................................................................................................66
Figure 5.4 Spike and another trans rights activist stand in the road outside of
the Florida State House. (Photo via Spike, April 2023)................................................................67
Figure 5.5 A poster stating ‘The trans agenda is an average life expectancy.’ (Illustration by jen
byers)..............................................................................................................................................68
Figure 5.6 A protest sign for a trans rights rally. (Photo via Spike, April 2023).........................70
Figure 5.7 Kyle sits with his new jacket art. (Photo via Spike, April 2023)..................................72
vii
Figure 5.8 Comic of coming out story. (Comic by zifei Zhang)....................................................89
Figure 5.9 The Southwest Chief. (Photo by jen byers, June 2023)..............................................91
Figure 5.10 A flaming bisexual rides the train, hoping to ruin the lives of America’s bigots........94
Figure 5.11 A bard from Upstate New York sings, plays and tells stories on the train.
(Photo by jen byers, June 2023).....................................................................................................96
Figure 5.12 A photo looking out the window, somewhere in Kansas or Colorado, I think.
(Photo by jen byers, June 2023).....................................................................................................97
Figure 5.13 A photo out the window, in the southwest desert.
(Photo by jen byers, June 2023).....................................................................................................97
Figure 5.14 A rule for visitors to my favorite witch store in Florida.
(Photo by jen byers, July 2023).....................................................................................................99
Figure 5.15 Moss hangs in the trees in central Florida. (Photo by jen byers, July 2023).............99
Figure 15.16 Villagers line up for their happy hour drinks. (Photo by jen byers, July 2023).....101
Figure 15.17 Seating arrangements in The Villages SeaBreeze Rec center. (Photo by jen byers,
July 2023).....................................................................................................................................102
Figure 15.18 An inspirational quote at the SeaBreeze Rec Center. (Photo by jen byers, July
2023)............................................................................................................................................103
Figure 5.19 More seating at the SeaBreeze Rec Center. (Photo by jen byers, July 2023)..........103
Figure 5.20 The way out of The Villages. (Photo by jen byers, July 2023).................................107
Figure 5.21 A photo of the forest preserve, location hidden to protect source request
for anonymity. (Photo by jen byers, July 2023)...........................................................................110
Figure 5.22 An uncleared, overgrown, fire prone area of the forest preserve.
(Photo by jen byers, July 2023)....................................................................................................111
Figure 5.23 A cleared and prescribed burn-treated area of the forest preserve. (Photo by jen
byers, July 2023)..........................................................................................................................112
Figure 5.24 Hooded pitcher plants. (Photo by jen byers, July 2023)..........................................113
viii
Figure 5.25 Oli, or Creature, MC’s the drag show. (Photo by jen byers, July 2023)..................120
Figure 5.26 A collection of photos from the drag show...............................................................121
Figure 5.27 Drag performers line up at the end of the show. (Photo by jen byers, July 2023)...124
Figure 5.28 Roses........................................................................................................................133
ix
ABSTRACT
Turncoat: The Origin Stories is an experimental work of journalism and a critique of
harmful patterns in historic and modern-day reportage. It uses techniques pulled from
community-centered journalism, autoethnography, movement journalism, Indigenous research
methods and reparative journalism to critique the biases often underlying the values of
“objectivity” and “neutrality.” Turncoat offers a more caring and culturally competent ethical
compass for reporters, by demonstrating a way forward. Turncoat concludes with embedded
reporting from queer and trans communities in Florida, during the summer of 2023. It highlights
stories of drag and kink, queer ecology and trans-led resistance to eradication.
x
Chapter One: How I Became a Journalist.
Since the first rattling emergence of the Trump administration, I have been a sort of double
agent: my loyalty with the people; my paycheck from the media.
Figure 1.1 A protester in a balaclava marching next to a graffiti of “Amerikkka” during a Los
Angeles protest against Trump’s winning the Presidential election.
(Photo by jen byers, Nov 2016)
I have not exactly adhered to the traditional frameworks of “journalistic objectivity” or
“liberal neutrality” because... my friends have been in danger, and the people threatening us have
names and addresses. How can you, truly, remain neutral when the people you love are being
hurt? Why would you want to?
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” ―
Desmond Tutu
1
For most of my life, a pain has lived deep in my chest, and I have used my skills —
researching, fact checking, interviewing and editing — to soothe it. It has long since been a joke
among my loved ones, "anytime Jen’s hurting, she'll become an expert on the topic ailing her."
And so, here we are, at one of the finest media and communications schools in the world,
studying story. But why is that?
In 2015, I began to feel, intimately, the consequential rumble of misrepresentation. Blackled community mourning would be declared senseless riots. Survivors of sexual and domestic
violence have been reviled as crazy, vengeful social justice warriors, out of control. Queer, trans,
rainbow darlings called pedophiles and groomers. Radical rallies with their numbers deeply
undercut. Hatred and vile called mere political theater.
Figure 1.2 Pro-Trump, anti-immigrant protestors in Laguna Beach, CA.
(Photo by jen byers, August 2017)
2
In February 2016, I took a trip to the Southern California desert, and I asked the stars and
clouds and moon what to do. They told me, "use your camera as a gun, little one, and fight in this
war for us." I was visited by a moth, who warned me, "you will see much pain and death in these
coming years." I swallowed, shaking. I nodded and accepted my fate.
Figure 1.3 A moth that offered me a quest in TwentyNine Palms, CA.
(Photo by jen byers, Feb 2016)
That night, the land spoke to me, too: "Find out what happened to us. Find out whose we
should be. Trace back the annals of history. Find out who you are and how you got here."
I said, ok, and I kept my eyes open. I began to photograph marches and rallies,
documenting the real crowd numbers, posting quotes and speech summaries to Facebook and
social media accounts. I shared eye-witness reports with my friends — news that often subverted
or questioned that which was displayed on the TV and the radio. I wasn't trying to be
inflammatory, but I found contradictions in the mainstream media. I felt it was mistelling the
3
truth, near-everywhere.
Migrants weren’t hurting anyone; they were being hurt by ICE and DHS. Queer people
were not a threat to children; we were being threatened by Christian nationalists. Black
communities were not acting senseless, they were mourning and grieving and fed up because
they deserve so much better than being shot in the streets by police. A scene with tear gas, Lrads, sniper copters and munitions was closer to a war zone than to a protest, and the state was
the side consistently escalating to extreme violence.
In summer 2016, I came to understand what they mean when they say “our liberations are
intertwined.” Brock Turner, the swimming Stanford rapist, was on trial for an egregious act of
sexual violence — an act that was far too familiar to me. Alton Sterling and Philando Castile
were murdered by police, just days apart, for selling CDs and having a busted tail light,
respectively. The state gave Turner just a slap on the wrist, a short prison sentence. It allowed the
murderous police officers to walk. This combustion made me realize: the violences of sexual
assault and police brutality are enabled by the same set of legal codes, judges and lawmakers.
Our liberations are intertwined because our oppression is enacted by the same set of people and
beliefs.
In November 2016, I clasped my hand over my mouth, and for a while, I lost the skill to
speak. I saw icicles in beards. I saw frostbite taking over noses. I heard screams and booms and
agony fill the air. I had arrived to a battlefield: the Backwater Bridge, on highway 1806 in
Standing Rock, North Dakota.
4
Figure 1.4 Lines of police officers behind barbed wire with icicles, after spraying Indigenous
water protectors with water at the Backwater Bridge at Standing Rock, ND.
(Photo by jen byers, Nov 2016)
Hours earlier, a group of Indigenous water protectors had attempted to remove a
roadblock with their tow truck, and the law didn’t much like that. The Morton County Sherriffs
began shooting people with rubber bullets, hurling teargas. By nighttime, when I had arrived
clueless, the police and sheriffs were spraying unarmed people, in sub-freezing air temperatures
with water, and the people were praying. Water protectors stood around a fire, running wood and
blankets and medic stretchers back and forth, back and forth. They shivered under silver
blankets, and I walked to the very front of the melee.
I stood next to three of them. They held up a plastic tarp, hoping to stop the cold spray
from hitting others. I stared at the police, with my freckles and my green eyes and my then-red
hair showing, and I just looked at them, my mouth agape. What are you doing? I asked. A man in
5
uniform paused. He looked at me. He looked at the rubber bullet gun in his hands, and then he
looked at me again. I think I saw guilt in his eyes. We stood, staring at each other for a few
moments, until he walked back behind his cruiser, reloaded the gun and made eye contact with
me as he shot rubber bullets into the crowd.
That was the day I realized: the enemy wouldn’t hurt me, at least not directly, and I had, I
had to use this privilege for some kind of good.
Figure 1.5 The Cannon Ball River, which was threatened by the Dakota Access Pipeline.
(Photo by jen byers, Nov 2016)
The following day, sitting around a fire pit with my travel buddy and some college boys
from Idaho, a Lakota security guard, an Akicita from Green Grass, SD came to visit. His name
was Alex High Elk, from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and he had a laugh like a full-blown
6
tornado. He sang us a wind song and then left. A few nights later, he returned and pulled me
aside. He asked me for a favor: “Will you please help us?”
I looked confused, “What do you mean? I don’t know what I can do.” I was 26, but I felt
like a child.
“Well, what can you do?” He asked.
“I’m a photographer, I guess. And I can write and research pretty good.”
He nodded. “Then do that, then. Tell people what they’re doing to us. This isn’t a protest;
it’s a warzone. The Indian Wars never ended, and no one seems to know about it.”
I nodded.
“It’s been going on since 1492, and it’s never really stopped.”
I nodded. “Why do you want my help, though?”
“Because,” he said, “I can see the sadness in your eyes, and that makes me trust you. I
don’t know why, but I know that you feel for us.”
I nodded. I did.
“So help.”
“Ok,” I said. My marching orders.
7
Figure 1.6 Alex High Elk holding a barbed wire dream catcher at Oceti Oyate Camp in
Standing Rock, ND. (Photo by jen byers, Feb 2017)
I found a post in the Oceti Sakowin Camp media tent, typing up press details for the
visiting media, who were trekking in from all over the world. I worked next to a woman named
Kathleen, who had long, gray hair and was an ally from Alaska. She lived in her truck and used
to work at a youth center, supporting Indigenous kids for years. She had a good sense of danger,
and she’d throw out visiting, mainstream media who didn’t behave. She taught a lot of the
Southerners how to tend a wood stove — including the photographer, Josue Rivas.
It was in this tent that I began to see how the news media, and its penchant for
parachuting, worked.
It was here that my critique really began to take shape.
8
Figure 1.7 A view of Oceti Sakowin Camp from Media Hill in Standing Rock, ND.
(Photo by jen byers, Dec 2016)
See, from the beginning, I’ve operated from a different set of rules than the western
media is accustomed to. And, from the beginning, I’ve been an enforcer of these rules, a
gatekeeper of sorts. It’s been my role, from the jump, to try and stop reporters from causing
unnecessary harm. It’s just taken me a few years to make sense of what this really means and to
figure out how to explain it to you.
See,
Kathleen and I would intake newly arrived press, and we took direction from the
Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), then run by Tom and Dallas Goldtooth, Kandy
Mosset and Jade Begay. The Standing Rock media tent itself was founded by Desiree Kane, who
has since become a mentor, a collaborator and a beloved big sister to me. As allies to the Oceti
Sakowin’s fight, our primary goal was to tell the non-Indigenous press what’s-what, to teach
9
them how to operate on Lakota land. I laugh today at how unqualified I was to do that, but I was
given some basic rules to share.
I was to tell visiting press:
- You must ask for consent before photographing anyone or anything.
- You cannot photograph inside the kitchens, medic tents or religious spaces.
- You cannot photograph the kids.
- You are here to document police brutality, not to write culture or art pieces.
- It’s called Oceti Sakowin Camp. The Oceti Sakown are the Seven Council Fires — a
confederation of Lakota, Dakota and Nakota peoples, whose land you’re currently on.
- If someone tells you to stop, stop.
- This is a prayer camp and sacred space, please act accordingly.
Figure 1.8 The media rules were based off of the rules for Oceti Sakowin Camp, shown here.
(Photo by jen byers)
A lot of the journalists were horrible at following these instructions. Some knocked over
elders, others barged to the medic tents, while the healers were working. A few reporters were
removed, and their cries of “This is my First Amendment!” were hushed, with a simple, This isn’t
10
the United States. Your Constitution doesn't apply here. This is Lakota land. That’s kind of the
whole point of the camp.
It was this introduction that made me realize: the rules of journalism were malleable.
Notions of objectivity could be replaced with reciprocity. The ideal of a parachuting outsider
might be replaced with embedded context. I shut my mouth, opened my ears, and I began to
learn — and from those lessons, I dreamt of better.
Figure 1.9 Ramona and Oscar High Elk (L), Nathan Phillips (center) and Ray Kingfisher bless
the South Gate of Oceti Oyate Camp, on the day of a planned raid by the Army Corps of
Engineers, Morton County Sheriff's Department, private security and many other U.S.
Government agencies. (Photo by jen byers, Feb. 2017)
I followed the water protector trail for a few years, before studying Indigenous Research
Methodologies at Diné College, in Tsalie, Arizona. I worked as an Editor for the Diné Policy
Institute, under scholars Dr. Franklin Sage, Mike Parrish and Majerle Lister. They taught me the
importances of including community in research and ensuring your work adds to the lives of the
11
people you’re studying. The idea was to study and research with, not about.
I carried these lessons in my pocket when I went to work for Al Jazeera International,
based in DC. I wrote a lot on Indigenous issues and other struggles for land, life, safety and
resources – anti-rape protests in Ireland, Israeli brutality against Palestinians, southern territory
migrants looking for refuge, reparations efforts for Black folks in America, natural disasters and
climate change.
Frankly, I struggled. Not only did the journalism I produced open my eyes to the depth
and pervasiveness of state-led violence, resource extraction and social negligence, but the
newsroom experience made me realize: the journalism world was not yet ready for real
community inclusion. So, I paused for a while.
I took two years off, and I moved back home to Philadelphia. I studied my own ancestors,
fought for my own safety, and reckoned with the pain that lived in my body, my family and our
past. I realized and accepted a few things: I’m queer, and my ancestors were Druidic turned Irish
Catholic (mom’s side) and white, southern colonizers (on my dad’s). I let these vantage points
infuse my work.
The following thesis will introduce you to a few problems I have encountered in
newsrooms and in mainstream journalism, from my declared positionality. It will share some of
the reflections these problems inspired, and I will offer solutions that I’ve begun to implement in
my own work, since beginning this journey in 2016.
12
Chapter Two: Statement of the Problem.
My time observing and participating in the media landscape has made clear to me that
journalism does not always equip journalists to report on oppressed communities with care or
cultural competency. I’ve found this comes from a few origin points, both structural to the
newsroom and historical — a byproduct of the pervasive and pre-existing frameworks of
colonialism, classism, heteropatriarchy and white supremacy.
In order to understand my position that newsrooms struggle with care and cultural
competency, I want to first address the architectures of newsrooms – organizational and
demographic trends that I’ve found cause these errors in practice.
After addressing these problems, I will offer solutions and will conclude with a piece of
journalism that, I believe, puts these new values to the test.
Contemporary structural bias
The first problem I noticed is that newsroom budgets and production timelines rarely
account for embedded reporting. They prioritize, instead, short trips, where a reporter is
“deployed” into a war, conflict or disaster zone. This regularly results in coverage that is shallow
and without wise context — coverage that coverage can leave local communities feeling harmed,
used and exploited. Per Axios, approximately a third of local newsrooms have closed since 2005,
which only adds to this problem: without robust local reporting networks, the weight of
mainstream coverage has fallen onto legacy outlets, which are largely based in big cities.
Culturally, there are ample differences between city folks and rural communities, just as
13
there are ample differences among regional, national and international cultures. While, of course,
it is possible for a journalist to be culturally competent in a number of different codes, the
historic catering to whiteness, neutrality and respectability within newsrooms can make it
difficult for journalists of color or journalists from otherwise fringe communities and codes to
thrive, longterm, in reporting positions.
A report from the University of Michigan describes code switching – which entails
moving between different languages, dialects and cultural norms – as an added “burden” that
comes with “psychological costs” for reporters of color in white-dominate professional spaces.
In the report, assistant professor of psychology Myles Durkee, explains, “You have to
change your entire behavioral profile to successfully convince people that your code-switching
behaviors are in fact your ‘natural behaviors.’ To sustain this performance while still completing
the full responsibilities of a student or employee can be incredibly demanding and physically
exhausting.”
As per a 2023 Pew Research study, approximately 76% journalists surveyed were white,
while only 6% were Black, 8% Hispanic and 3% Asian – Indigenous journalists weren’t even
noted. Per the same study, 51% were men. A UK-based study by the National Council for the
Training of Journalism (NCTJ) noted that 72% of British reporters came from the highest social
class, compared to 44% of all UK workers. Similarly, a U.S.-based Neiman Lab study noted that
“Journalists, especially at national news outlets, come disproportionately from well-off families,
large metropolitan areas, and top-tier universities.”
14
In the general U.S. population, 75.5% are white, 13.6% are Black, 19.1% are Hispanic,
6.3% are Asian, 1.6% are Indigenous, while 3% are multi-racial. This shows that newsrooms are
less racially diverse than the general population.
Further, while another NCTJ study says UK journalists are slightly more likely than the
general public to identify as LGBTQ+, that still only counts for 4% of UK journalists. Statistics
regarding the amount of LGBTQ+ journalists in the U.S. don’t seem to exist, but in the general
population, but 7.1% of adults identify as LGBTQ+, per Gallup. Of that, 11% of U.S. adults
identify as non-binary, per a UCLA study. And, nationally, approximately 1.6% of the U.S.
population identifies as trans, per Pew.
Finally, over 96% of American journalists have a Bachelor’s degree, compared with
about 38% of the general population. Per Neiman lab, 20% of journalists have a Masters degree,
compared to 14.4% of the general U.S. population.
What this data notes is: newsrooms are, overwhelmingly, straight, cis, white and wealthy.
So, journalists of color, queer journalists and journalists who don’t have rich parents often have
to code switch, sometimes over a number of identity markers, just to fit in and function at work.
This puts both an added psychological and social burden on those reporters, as well as added
barriers for their points of view to be received professionally or be deemed “respectable.”
While a reporter may be hired for their cultural competency or cultural affiliation with a
marginalized or working class community, they are typically unable to really, fully be able to
bring that cultural competency to the workplace. I’ve seen and experienced that reporters must
15
often serve as translators between their sources and their editors or managers, instead of being
able to “break code” and speak freely in the newsroom with their relevant cultural dialects.
Instead of “inclusion” meaning the acceptance of many cultural codes in the workplace,
it’s common that the burden of assimilating to and behaving in line with the dominant (white, cis,
hetero, wealthy) workplace culture is placed on the shoulders of minoritized reporters. This often
creates a situation where marginalized and culturally competent reporters have to work at least
double time – not just reporting, but masking, code switching, translating or even assimilating to
the dominant culture – to function at work.
Ultimately, this can create a situation where a reporter feels less and less safe to bring
themselves, their lives, their experiences to work. This dynamic can increase burn out, decrease
worker productivity or retention and can cause marginalized reporters to leave the newsroom or
profession altogether – which ultimately reinforces the preexisting culture and power structures,
catering to whiteness, cisheteropatriarchy and wealth.
As the Nieman Lab notes, “This is a problem because people from such similar
socioeconomic backgrounds often share the same cultural outlook and the same blind spots.”
I’ve observed that the standard work environment of journalistic spaces creates a
dynamic where reporters are de facto required to behave within dominant cultural codes. It
seems that this is because structural homogeneity reinforces a particular cultural outlook.
Personally, I believe that this is the very definition of bias.
Unfortunately, I’ve noticed this bias is not just structural, but also historic.
16
Historic bias.
Per Afua Hirsch’s lectures at Annenberg, the first foreign correspondents were literal
colonizers, writing home about the wonders of the “New World.” Their letters would be
published in local European newspapers, to encourage more people to come and settle in the new
colonies.
Sometimes, the letters would even be rewritten to suit the popular narratives of racism,
“brutishness” and “savagery” in the colonized country. One specific historic example is how the
British pirate William Dampier’s writing was submitted to this process in publishing. During his
three circumnavigations of the globe, Dampier compiled diaries, bringing words like avocado,
barbeque and cashew into the English dictionary.
When printed by the English press in 1697, his book “A New Voyage Around The World''
included racist passages, including a famously terrible one about Bardi and Jawi peoples, who
are Indigenous to what colonizers called Australia. But, historical analysis notes that his original
manuscripts showed admiration for Aboriginal people – not the prejudice that made it into the
published work. This discrepancy shows one of many practical, historic examples of publishers
editing work to be more racist and prejudicial, to fit the dominant, profit-motivated expansionist
aims of empire. Racist press collaborated to degrade a population, to thus justify stealing from
them.
I noticed a continuation of this practice at Standing Rock, and the legacy of historic bias
became apparent to me there, in a few ways. First, reporters largely referred to the Lakota-led
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battle for clean water as a “protest.” Media also commonly referred to Indigenous water
protectors as “protestors” or “activists.” They claimed to do this in an attempt to maintain
journalistic “neutrality” – not wanting to side with the water protectors. I believe, however, this
fundamentally compromised the accuracy of their reporting. On the ground, the Standing Rock
occupation was more often called “anti-colonial resistance,” a war or conflict zone, a “front line”
and “continuation of the Indian Wars” – referring to the 500+ year conquest of European-descent
settlers, intent to take Indigenous land and use it for resources.
In calling Standing Rock merely a “protest,” visiting journalists often took the land
defense effort out of the larger context of the historic wars and colonization, led by the United
States, private companies and settlers against Native peoples for land and resources. The press’s
codification often reduced Indigenous people to “activists,” which according to Jeff Doctor, a
Cayuga strategist and researcher from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, “denotes that
they are citizens protesting something within their state via the legitimate mechanisms afforded
them.”
He explains that, “Once their methods are deemed illegitimate by the state, [activists]
become criminals.”
Unlike the rights of activists, who are typically beholden to their state’s laws, Indigenous
people and land defenders have a different set of rights, per international law. And thus, word
choice matters.
Instead of “activist” or “protestor”, Doctor believes the term “land defender” is most
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accurate. Doctor notes that “Land defenders are not activists, nor are they criminals.”
Per the UN’s Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the right of Indigenous
people to defend their territory is protected. As Article 29 of UNDRIP states, “Indigenous
peoples have the right to the conservation and protection of the environment and the productive
capacity of their lands or territories and resources.”
Many visiting press at Standing Rock ignored this legal protection and linguistic
specificity, and with that, their words actually perpetuated colonial violence. By downgrading
water protectors from Indigenous “land defenders,” people who have internationally recognized
legal rights to organize and protect their territory against a centuries-old “colonial war,” to
“activists” engaged in “protesting,” media rhetoric flattened the deeper context and history of
Indigenous peoples and colonialism – thus serving the inherent interests of colonialism: the
delegitimization of Indigenous sovereignty, for the end result of taking of Indigenous land to
extract profit and resources.
Acknowledging patterns like this, where historic prejudices within journalism still impact
the modern day, is essential to understand contemporary critiques of the media. If journalism’s
historic ties are not reckoned with, we as reporters risk perpetuating violence – across many axes
and subjects.
In 2020, a serious attempt at this reckoning came to journalism, led by Black journalists.
In the wake of the uprising following George Floyd’s murder at the hands of police, Black
reporters and their allies outed the fact that number of news outlets had historic and profitable
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ties to the slave trade. A number of papers accumulated wealth from the slave trade, either by
posting ads or bounty notices for captured slaves. Places like The Guardian and the New York
Post were noted in these histories, along with a number of local papers in places like
Philadelphia; New York; New-Lisbon, OH; and multiple Mississippi cities.
It has also since been acknowledged that a number of newsrooms had biased crime
reporting, one-sided conflict coverage and double standards for reporting on communities of
color. Newsrooms have since made promises like increasing diversity on their staff; made
apologies and anti-racist announcements; and voiced commitment to improve workplace culture.
However, many Black journalists and their allies have noted that these efforts, three years later,
have not resulted in significant change.
In fact, this reckoning continues today. As recently as November 2023, media workers
protested chronic anti-Palestianin, Pro-Israel bias at the New York Times. As I’ll go into in
Chapter V, the paper of record’s bias also touches, among others, the LGBTQ+ community.
Though this topic of historic prejudice backed into the society and the media deserves
entire bookshelves written on this, my purpose with this thesis is not to relitigate the entire
history of prejudice in journalism. For more work on that, I refer you to the work of other
authors: “News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media” by Juan
González and Joseph Torres, “The New Age of Empire: How Racism and Colonialism Still Rule
the World” by Kehinde Andrews, “Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black
Struggle for a New America,” edited by Kathy Roberts Forde and Sid Bedingfield, “Bearing
Witness While Black” by Dr. Allissa Richardson, “White Supremacy and the American Media”
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edited by Sarah D. Nilsen and Sarah E. Turner, “The Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein and
“Imperiled Whiteness: How Hollywood and Media Make Race in ‘Postracial’ America” by
Penelop Ingram and “Veils of Distortion: How the News Media Warps Our Minds” by John
Zada.
My key point here is to make clear that media and journalism institutions are not exempt
from harmful economic, political and social histories, but rather are often a key part of
reinforcing popular biases. Journalistic outlets are not immune to making errors in judgment,
which can become abundantly clear in the rearview mirror of time.
Whiteness as water.
So, like many of my colleagues and haters who have come before you, you may be
wondering, “So what? Why do you care? You’re white.”
As if it’s really that simple.
Figure 2.1 A political cartoon from 1881, depicting Irish-American immigrants, like my
ancestors, as sub-human.
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Anyway, if you really did say that, I’d reply by giving you a very sour look, a very heavy
sigh. I would remind you: historic and structural bias is just… bad. It’s unjust, unfair and
contrary to all notions of equality and human dignity. I’ve already told you: I got into this work
to use my privilege for good. And, put simply, I do not want to live complicit in a universe where
anyone is subject to prejudice or bias – in life, at work, or from the “objective, neutral” media
purporting to represent us all.
Thus, I think now is a great time to unpack what the relenting push to be neutral and
objective... actually does.
Let’s focus, for now, on the claim for neutrality; I’ll discuss objectivity in the next
chapter. See, it’s my personal belief that an industry cannot possibly be neutral until it has
meaningfully and thoroughly acknowledged, reflected on and disrupted its bias. I know I am not
alone in thinking that journalism, as it stands, has not done that. So, I will offer one place to
start: acknowledge that whiteness is the water, come to learn the water and realize this water is
not “neutral.”
This “water” analogy comes from an idea that I first encountered in David Foster
Wallace’s 2005 address to Kenyon College. The address was aptly called “This is Water.” In the
speech, Foster Wallace notes that “a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically
certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded.”
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He expands on this concept by telling a short story.
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to
meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says
“Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for
a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes
“What the hell is water?”
Foster Wallace says that “the point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important
realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.” That is – if a person, or a fish,
is immersed in a singular body, viewpoint or ideology for their entire life and experience of the
world, they will find it very difficult to talk about or reckon with that ideology. I believe that
immersion (in whiteness and its resulting values) is exactly what is happening in journalism, with
regards to its historic, structural and cultural bias.
This idea of whiteness being the water has been addressed by academics like Kelly E.
Maxwell in her essay “Deconstructing Whiteness: Discovering the Water.” She notes that
“whiteness in this society is the norm. It is the standard by which others are measured. Because
of this, white folks do not have to think about being white.”
She argues that, “white people, then, do not have to see themselves as white but rather as
without a race.” Then, she proceeds to tell the story of her own realization of whiteness – first
through coming out as a lesbian, which enabled her to see both her privilege and oppression.
I want to note, here, what I mean by “whiteness.” Whiteness is not simply about having
pale skin or being descended from Europeans alone. It’s a larger social and ideological structure
that, as Dr. Allissa Richardson teaches, is “about a system of ideals that have served as the
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foundation for creating and sustaining an inequitable global society.”
Under the umbrella of whiteness are structures like slavery, colonialism, heteropatriarchy,
the nuclear family, classism and fragility. Historically, whiteness has afforded white researchers
and reporters to see themselves, as Maxwell says “without race,” while colleagues of color were
perceived as having race. Whiteness has, for a long time, been seen as a mark of “neutrality” –
despite having ample preconditions and a robust, complex history of power.
In fact, whiteness was invented to provide an ideological basis to uphold and enforce
these other systems, which tactically stripped so many communities of resources, land, power,
language and culture. That level of destruction is the opposite of neutral.
Dr. Ben Carrington notes, in his essay “‘What’s the Footballer Doing Here?’ Racialized
Performativity, Reflexivity, and Identity” that “accounts that fail to interrogate whiteness
inadvertently produce a fixed view of racial identities, negating the very contested nature of their
construction.”
Thus, if whiteness itself is not interrogated or unpacked, it risks reinforcing racial bias
and essentialism – and with it, the values and prejudices whiteness incurs. He notes that these
prejudices include the notion that race is fixed or inherent in society, as opposed to being actively
constructed and remade. This prejudice suits specific political ends – namely, the maintenance of
white supremacy and its oppressive power.
Carrington explains that self-reflexivity can be a key action in this process of
interrogation. In his work, he considers “how does a researcher’s various social identities help or
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hinder them in understanding these processes at different moments…and how should these be
reflected in the research narrative?”
To give one example of how a person’s identity may impact their work, Carrington
spends a significant part of his essay talking about the tension of being both an insider and an
outsider to a community he is researching. He notes that outsider status itself can have some
advantages. One advantage is that people are more likely to tell you the entry level, 101
information if you’re an obvious outsider – details that they may assume an “insider” would
already know.
Within journalism, I’ve found that this type of experience (of being an outsider being told
the 101) can actually be the exact thing that helps a reporter understand their water. In
reporting, being exposed to new ways of life and social norms can precisely inspire personal
reckonings with previously unquestioned beliefs.
But, I, too, believe that it requires that the journalist be open to self-reflection and
transformation. And, unfortunately, the values of journalism have not traditionally allowed for
that. By locating the reporter as a neutral or objective outsider with a fixed system of beliefs,
journalism has implicitly stripped reporters of the agency to be transformed by their work,
interviews and experiences. Those limits, I believe, are dually holding the profession back from
evolving and winning trust.
Ultimately, I believe that this internal questioning and reckoning is crucial to journalistic
and reparative success – thus a key part of fixing the structural, historic and cultural biases
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within journalism that I’ve outlined here. In my opinion, journalists can only do this effective,
reparative work if they are open to self-reflection and open to unpacking the biases inherent
within themselves and the field.
It is through self-reflection that we, like the metaphorical fish, can come to understand
our water.
Through self-reflection, we can come to have an “awareness of what is so real and
essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time.”
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Chapter Three: Methodology
In this section, I want to first show how journalistic objectivity is deeply tied to the
under-examined biases within the news media structure. These biases including whiteness,
colonialism, classism and heteropatriarchy. I want to reemphasize that these values are deeply
political, ideological and often enforced by violence – thus, they are in no way neutral.
Second, I’ll introduce a few other values and methodologies that, I believe, could be
experimented with, as the larger reckoning with objectivity transpires.
Ultimately, my goal is to create space for non-objective ways of knowing and
storytelling. My intention is to show that there can be many ways of knowing and of doing
journalism – and to argue that our field cannot be truly inclusive until we acknowledge and
accept this plurality. I believe that reckoning with journalistic objectivity is a key component
both of care and cultural competency, and thus the creation of more humane journalism.
Industry critiques of objectivity.
Objectivity has long been associated with the ideal stance of a reporter or researcher.
Colloquially, it inspires images of an outside observer, someone with no stakes in the situation,
speaking with and interviewing “both sides” of a conflict. At its best, an objective researcher is
someone astute and able to discern fact from hearsay, in order to find the reality of a messy
situation. At its worst, objectivity has resulted in dehumanization of studied subjects and the
reinforcement of bias.
In many essays, panels and meetups and conferences, mini-wars over objectivity’s
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usefulness and impact are ongoing. Across many corners of the profession, BIPOC, queer and
otherwise determined reporters have been engaged in conversations, reimagining the future
values of journalism.
In 2020, Wesley Lowrey’s New York Times opinion piece “A Reckoning Over
Objectivity, Led by Black Journalists” noted that “the views and inclinations of whiteness are
accepted as the objective neutral. When black and brown reporters and editors challenge those
conventions, it’s not uncommon for them to be pushed out, reprimanded or robbed of new
opportunities.”
Lowrey explains that “we also know that neutral “objective journalism” is constructed
atop a pyramid of subjective decision-making: which stories to cover, how intensely to cover
those stories, which sources to seek out and include, which pieces of information are highlighted
and which are downplayed. No journalistic process is objective. And no individual journalist is
objective, because no human being is.”
Lowrey acknowledges that under the guise of objectivity, majority-white newsrooms will
often produce work that attempts to not cause discomfort for other white people, politicians or
readers. Justifying their choices with terms like objectivity, white editors and managers will
decide which stories, perspectives, experts and lines of evidence are to be included – and which
are to be excluded. Lowrey notes that this amounts to “the contours of acceptable public debate
[largely being] determined through the gaze of white editors.”
Lowrey believes in a solution where “we will devote ourselves to accuracy, that we will
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diligently seek out the perspectives of those with whom we personally may be inclined to
disagree and that we will be just as sure to ask hard questions of those with whom we’re inclined
to agree.”
He proposes a journalism that is self-aware and imbued with moral and linguistic clarity,
even if that clarity would upset (white) people. He notes that the catering to whiteness inherent in
“objective neutrality” often negatively impacts Black and brown people in real ways, such as
providing a platform to racist and bigoted politicians, state actors and police.
Lewis Wallace, a transgender journalist, notes in their 2017 essay “Objectivity is dead,
and I’m okay with it” that “neutrality isn’t real…The ‘center’ that is viewed as neutral can and
does shift; studying the history of journalism is a great help in understanding how centrism is
more a marketing tactic to reach broad audiences than actual neutrality.”
Wallace proposes solutions where marginalized journalists should be at the helm of
editing and leadership; journalist should “fight back”; and publications should “own the fact that
to tell the stories and promote the voices of marginalized and targeted people is not a neutral
stance from the sidelines, but an important front in a lively battle against the narrow-mindedness,
tyranny, and institutional oppression that puts all of our freedoms at risk.”
Instead of a journalist, Wallace refers to themselves as an “evidence-based writer and
podcaster” and offers abolitionist reporting resources, like a guide for how not to be a
“Copagandist.” The guide offers tactics like “don’t repeat police narratives unchecked,” “don’t
fuel fearmongering” and “expose the way police use their power.” These tactics intend to unset
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the often unquestioned, pro-state, pro-policing ideas that are all too common in mainstream
journalism.
In some circles, critiques and solutions like Lowrey’s and Wallace’s are relegated as
“social justice journalism” – implying that the questioning of whiteness, tradition and state
authority is itself “activism.”
Conservative pundits, like Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley, think values
decentering whiteness are what’s causing the lack of trust in the media. In an essay entitled
“‘Leave Neutrality Behind’: University of Texas at Austin Initiative Embraces Advocacy
Journalism” Turley complains about the values of “solidarity” in reporting. He notes that “what
is most striking about this universal shift toward advocacy journalism (including at journalism
schools) is that there is no evidence that it is a sustainable approach for the media as an industry”
– implying that permanently catering to whiteness is sustainable.
Turley harkens back to a time where “all journalists shared a common ‘identity’ as
professionals who were able to separate their own bias and values from the reporting of the
news,” and, in so doing, shows his own bias: a preference for a world where reporters,
“professionals” behaved alike.
This tension, between marginalized reporters wanting to interrogate and remake news
standards, vs. conservative reporters wanting to cling tight to old models and ideals, is a major
battle within journalism and newsrooms today. In Chapter V, I’ll go in depth on one
manifestation of this debate, regarding the coverage of trans issues by the New York Times.
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Reflections on Objectivity.
I've also often found in newsrooms that the meaning of “objectivity” is taken for granted.
In many other disciplines, like anthropology, philosophy and hermeneutics, objectivity
has long been wrestled with, critiqued and, in many cases, dismissed. In academia it is known
this idea is complicated; in journalism, however, it is often discussed as an obvious truth and
unquestionably ideal positionality. It sometimes feels as though it is held as a sacred tenant.
In high school, I extensively studied the history of science, which traces objectivity from
Plato to Descartes to Kant and into the foundations of the scientific method. Through this
lineage, “objectivity” conceptually relies on dualism, a mind-body divide, a separation of the
“logical” mind over “irrational” matter. These ontological assumptions also dovetail with the
creation of whiteness – these thinkers being core ideologues of the western canon, the key
intellectual lineage of whiteness.
In undergrad, I studied Religious Studies and literary theory, two disciplines which
deeply interrogate whether “truth” and “meaning” are ever fixed or fully able to be known. Here,
I learned that meaning and core beliefs are deeply variant over time, readings and among
cultures. It is, in fact, normal for truth and interpretation to vastly change, depending on context
– an idea which runs quite contrary to notions of fixed “objectivity.”
After Standing Rock, I worked at Diné College, where I was introduced to the field of
Indigenous Research Methodologies by Dr. Franklin Sage. This discipline locates the researcher,
not as a singular, objective individual, but as an inherent part of both nature and the community,
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in relationship to both. Here, the researcher is known to be a part of, not apart from the social and
environmental ecosystem. Research is meant to be conducted with, not on the community.
Reciprocity is a core value of this practice, not a “conflict of interest.” This methodology is a
byproduct of many Indigenous worldviews, which are both equally valid to western ideologies
and largely contrary to western objectivity’s belief that the self, other, mind and matter are to be
treated as inherently separate entities.
At USC Annenberg, I learned about community-centered and reparative journalism from
Dr. Allissa Richardson. These ideas highlight the histories of bias and white supremacy in
traditional objective reporting; they seek to unseat harmful histories by engaging community
members in the journalism production process; and they, thus, aim to repair that historic harm.
In my personal life and community, I have dreamt up methodologies for consent-based
reportage, incorporating values of consent and autonomy, based on an understanding of anarchafeminist theory. I hoped to centralize the importance of willingness, dignity and buy-in of all
parties involved – so as to not create harm. In many ways, this view is inherently anti-objective
and anti-objectification, as it hinges on constant acknowledgement and respect for others’ person,
autonomy and subjecthood.
So, imagine my surprise when, nearly every day as a journalist, I am told I need to be
“objective,” with almost no discussion of what that “objectivity” really means. Within the
newsroom, its definition is just supposed to be known, accepted and agreed upon as a “key
tenant” of journalism. When I try to inquire about the origins of journalistic objectivity, I find
repeated nods to “neutrality,” “non-partisan” positionality and “fairness” – words that, to me,
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sound like an empty circle.
When I push back on, or even just point out, these vague declarations, I’m called “an
activist,” “an advocate” or “an academic” – as if my very curiosity about our fundamental
epistemic framework marks me as “an outsider” of journalism. I am often treated as if I am doing
something wrong by raising questions, and the platitudes of objectivity are repeated to me.
I am told to “remove myself” from the reporting and the situation.
But, I’m deeply aware that my identity, context, subjecthood, relationships and
experience impact all I do.
I am told “to see both sides,” though it appears to me there are usually at least a dozen.
I am told to “be objective,” but no one has outright explained what that means or why I
should want to be it.
And, I constantly feel… that maybe journalism hasn’t really reckoned with itself.
This is an example of water.
Alternatives to objectivity.
As I mentioned in Chapter 2, a way to overcome a false neutrality, like that of whiteness;
a way to see and dissect the “water” we are a part of; a way to move forward… is through selfreflexivity.
In this section, I’ll share some tools that have helped me with the process of reflection
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and becoming more self-aware of myself as a reporter and the impact of my reporting. In each
section, I’ve cited key texts that have helped me, should you want to learn more.
Before I begin, I want to clarify one of my goals, again: I aim to create space for more
types of journalism. In some situations, these perspectives may not be appropriate or helpful.
But, in offering them as tools, I want to encourage all reporters to meaningfully consider which
modalities would best suit each story they report on.
Just because I give you six options, doesn’t mean you need to use all of them, all of the
time. But, perhaps a few will be useful for your work.
Autoethnography
Autoethnography is a form of research, where the researcher uses their personal
experiences as a lens to understand broader cultural contexts. It requires that the researcher
engage critically with themselves as a part of the reporting process. Though ethnographic
research has long been a part of academic disciplines like anthropology, the core practice of
‘coming into a community, observing it and taking notes,’ is, also, a key tenant of journalism.
The term “autoethnography” came into being in the 70s, “to describe the practice of
cultural members giving an account of the culture,” as part of a larger reckoning with the
ethnographer’s positionality and “objectivity.” One history of autoethnography explains that, in
the 1980s, “ethnographers, in particular, could no longer hide behind or try to perpetuate an aura
of objectivity and innocence; any attempt to do so signified at best a lack of awareness and at
worst an abuse of research ‘subjects,’ as many of the ethnographer’s observations came to
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suggest more about the ethnographer and the ethnographer’s agenda than about the cultural
‘others’ being studied.”
Photojournalist and professor Dr. Tara Pixley once explained a similar sentiment to me,
that “anthropology basically figured out ‘objectivity’ was impossible in the 80s. It just seems like
their research never quite made it over to journalists.”
One goal of autoethnography is that “autoethnographers speak against, or provide
alternatives to, dominant, taken-for-granted, and harmful cultural scripts, stories, and
stereotypes,” and thus its practice is almost inherently radical – though, nonetheless, extremely
fact and evidence based.
Another goal is to “articulate insider knowledge of cultural experience” and to “describe
moments of everyday experience that cannot be captured through more traditional research
methods.” Thus, by allowing the researcher to explain and document their own experiences,
they’re seen, not just as a passive observer, but an equal participant in the research. Researchers
are given both subjectivity and a certain degree of trust – not for their impartiality, but for their
expertise and awareness.
Finally, autoethnography aims to “create texts that are accessible to larger audiences,
primarily audiences outside of academic settings,” which, I believe is a value we could well
import to journalism. While there are many conversations about why the media has lost trust, a
few key complaints I’ve heard have been, “it’s boring,” “I get better news on social media,” “I
don’t trust any of the pundits because they’re nothing like me,” “it’s way too white and liberal.”
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It appears, sincerely, that the cultural homogeneity of news media is absolutely impacting
audience retention. And, one potential solution to that may just be engaging autoethnography, to
engage the life experience of underrepresented reporters and build a bridge to their communities.
—
In some ways, personal essay journalism is close to autoethnography, but some iterations
of the movement have absolutely failed to include meaningful reflexivity, self-awareness or
cultural critique.
In the early 2010s, personal essay journalism was a style that engaged first-person writing
but ultimately did not engage principles of autoethnography. Outlets like xoJane, Salon and
Buzzfeed were known for this type of reporting. The criticism was often that this reporting could
be myopic, navel gazing and saturated with white feminism.
In a 2017 New Yorker-written obituary to personal essay journalism, Jia Tolentino noted
that “there’s a certain kind of personal essay that, for a long time, everybody seemed to hate.
These essays were mostly written by women. They came off as unseemly, the writer’s judgment
as flawed. They were too personal: the topics seemed insignificant, or else too important to be
aired for an audience of strangers.”
Tolentino noted that they often fell into categories like “body horror” or embarrassing
confession. She explained that this style quickly soured when the U.S. hit political turmoil, after
the election of Trump. Tolentino argued in 2017 that, “individual perspectives do not, at the
moment, seem like a trustworthy way to get to the bottom of a subject,” like how the hell
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America got such an openly hateful president.
While the personal essay boom of the early 2010s engaged the reporter as a key research
subject, it did not do enough to tackle the reporter’s broader social context – like their whiteness.
Instead of using the reporter as a vehicle to analyze the world, the personal essay boom focused
deeply on the individual and their unique experiences. This created a level of solipsism that led
to the style being largely dismissed.
However, magazines like Salty. and gal-dem kept the first-person style alive, but with a
decidedly intersectional feminist lens. Where the xoJane essays could often be highly
unreflective of the myopia of their perspectives, magazines like Salty and gal-dem openly
wrestled with larger political issues and intersections, such as imagining futures beyond the
gender binary; the relationship between doxxing and domestic violence; or the recovery of self
after trauma and abuse.
In reckoning with these larger, social complexities like grief and hopelessness as it relates
to gender, race and class, intersectional feminist, autobiographical journalism aligns quite well
with autoethnography – it clearly sees the personal as political, and through the exploration of
society through self, this style is able to offer the reader the space, inspiration and vulnerability
to engage the same level of self-reflection.
In a moment when, I believe, journalism is precisely struggling to self-examine, I think
the practice of autoethnography could absolutely be a starting point or exercise. Not only does it
encourage the reporter to have self-awareness, it provides a level of transparency that can be a
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vehicle to interrogate bias. Also, it fundamentally challenges the assumption that the researcher
can be removed from a situation, offering a more honest and realistic positionality.
Phenomenology
Phenomenology may be another important ideology to consider when crafting journalism
that means to challenge, or reckon with, objectivity. Per the Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, “phenomenology is the study of ‘phenomena’: appearances of things, or things as
they appear in our experience, or the ways we experience things, thus the meanings things have
in our experience.”
Phenomenology was part of a larger 20th century philosophical movement, which
dovetailed with existentialism: a key reckoning of the limits of the self, meaning and authority.
As Maurice Merleau-Ponty says, “phenomenology involves describing, and not explaining or
analyzing.” It is “the attempt to provide a direct description of our experience such as it is.”
Instead of seeing the world as a fixed object, Merleau-Ponty recognizes that “the world is
not an object whose law of constitution I have in my possession; it is the natural milieu and the
field of all my thoughts and of all my explicit perceptions.” Thus, coming to describe the worldas-seen by a reporter could become the key goal – instead of offering “objective fact” that seeks
to set itself above human error or bias. Unlike contemporary objective journalism,
phenomenology honors the role of self-understanding in the acquisition of knowledge, where
“reflective analysis works back toward the subject.”
I wonder, perhaps, what journalism could look like if it reckoned with this positionality
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and more. I wonder what reporting would look like if it acknowledged all of the ways our
articles, documentaries and memories of the world are highly tied to our perspectives and
personal histories, which mediate how we (and our sources) understand the world.
By imbuing our reporting with the acknowledgement of phenomenology – the belief that
there are limits to our understanding, and that individuals are limited to only ever fully
understand their experience of the world – journalists can take a few steps away from objectivity,
where in the reporter is expected to seek almost an all-knowing, all-observing, omniscient
perspective. In acknowledging that the individual’s (both the researcher and the researched)
capacity of understanding is limited by their perceptions, we can actually create a more
compassionate journalism – one that allows for limits, reflections and the humanity of
perspective.
Instead of a reporter being asked to sacrifice their opinions, personal history and
experience of the reported moments, leaning into an ideology of phenomenology would give the
reporter a positionality to have all of those things and to still report. In exchange for a
perspective that accepts the reality of the reporter’s inner world, perceptions and experiences,
journalism would only have to sacrifice a bit of its presumption of all-knowing authority. In
exchange for this, a journalism that has reckoned with phenomenology could have a more
realistic view of itself and the world around us.
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Community-Centered and Reparative Journalism
A key tenant of community-centered journalism is that the information should serve and
center the needs of the local community its reporting serves. It aims to be engaged with its
sources, not extractive or transactional from them.
As per “Redefining News: A Manifesto for Community-Centered Journalism,” a 2023
publication from the University of Oregon, community-centered journalism includes the values
of care, collaboration, kinship and co-creation. It prioritizes meeting the community’s needs and
access “over more conventional newsroom practices, metrics and routines.” And, it’s created
with a “bottom-up approach, with beats, stories and products ascertained as a result of deep
listening and engagement… [often with] communities that don’t consume your product and who
may have been overlooked, stereotyped or underserved by the mainstream media.”
Thus, community-centered journalism challenges who is served by the reporting and how
the reporting itself is presented and packaged. Instead of, as Wesley Lowrey says, the news being
written for and by upper-class, white folks, community-centered journalism embeds within a
region or social group and centers its products and stories on their needs and wants.
Close kin to community-centered journalism is reparative journalism, which means to
remake newsrooms and news production to reckon with and repair historic harms journalism has
caused to marginalized groups. Reparative journalism requires that news institutions reckon with
and acknowledge legacies of racism and prejudice in their news production; take accountability
for the harms that have been done; redress those harms, including by changing their newsroom
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structure and leadership; and reallocate funds and resources towards these efforts.
Community-centered and reparative journalism, I believe, are also crucial to include for
the growth and improvement of contemporary journalism. They both require a literal buy-in and
an acceptance that journalism has done harm. They believe harm should be repaired, and they
provide methodologies to do just that.
Consent-based reporting
Consent-based reporting is dependent on the belief that people deserve autonomy over
their lives, bodies, images and stories. For many, this belief is a challenge to entitlement – which,
I’ve noticed, is almost a core value of journalism, via whiteness, colonialism, classism,
heteropatriarchy and the history of parachute reporting.
For me, the value and practice of consent-based reporting came out of years of engaging
with radical, queer feminisms. I learned these ideas, first, in the Pacific Northwest, where the
RiotGrrrl movement reigned. Its spirit is carried today in anarcha-feminism. Anarcha-feminism
believes that the power structures we see in state and institutions are also mirrored in personal
relationships, in a direct way.
Anarchist writings on the press often acknowledge that the press often (implicitly or
explicitly) collaborates with the state, in order to criminalize dissent. A key text in understanding
this argument is called “In Defense of Smashing Cameras,” and it outlines things such as
“cameras are tools of surveillance” and the belief that “being photographed against our will is a
direct attack against our attempts of obfuscation and ought to be treated as such.”
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It is common to see press photographs of protestors later used by law enforcement and
the state or otherwise bad actors, to catch and incarcerate protestors. Some photographed
activists have even ended up dead, while the photographers who shot them have won awards.
To me, part of being a responsible member of the press requires understanding my power
and my privilege as a journalist. I understand that my work has been seen by millions, has been
translated into multiple languages and has traveled around the world. I understand that, because
of my profession, I am offered protection by the Constitution. I understand that I typically take
on less risk than others when I attend a protest or conflict zone. Part of operating with consent
and autonomy in mind requires that I support my sources to understand and opt-in to the risks
that being photographed, videoed or interviewed could pose to them. My goal is for them to
make informed, consensual and non-pressured decisions to participate in storytelling.
Where consent-based journalism can become tricky, though, is in the process of holding
power to account. Typically, exposing corruption or a breach of power is not a “consensual” act.
In fact, it is often a rather fundamentally non-consensual exposing, if not a symbolic overthrow,
of power. For those situations, I offer you an opportunity to reflect.
Movement Journalism
Movement journalism is a historic practice that centers the people, over catering to
institutions of power. Reporters like Ida B. Wells embody this idea, wherein a reporter’s goal is
to pose a critical lens on existing social structures, in order to bring justice with their work.
The term “movement journalism” comes out of the ideology of “movement building” in
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the Southeast United States. A 2017 report by Project South explains that movement building
refers to the Black-led struggle for liberation, marked by “people coming together to build the
power of all people to collectively control the conditions of our lives and our communities.”
Per Project South, movement journalism “eliminates hierarchies between editors and
reporters, between reporters and sources”; “honors the many ways people use language and
grammar”; “produces news that is based in the experiences and identities of oppressed people”
and “uses investigative reporting to expose how agents and systems of oppression operate,”
among other goals.
This type of reporting essentially knocks down the very barriers that hierarchical
whiteness, often masked as objectivity, imposes. For some, practicing movement journalism may
require a switch of allegiance, away from the powers that be – for others, like myself, learning
terms like “movement journalism” can give words to the care and protection that motivates our
work.
Indigenous Research Methods.
Indigenous research methodologies have been a key component of my journalistic
practices from the beginning, and I just want to first say thank you to all of the Indigenous
mentors, friends and collaborators I’ve had since camp and media hill. The foundations of
research, writing and relating I learned at Standing Rock and in the years following have formed
the bedrock of my engagement with all the other modalities above.
Two of the key values of Indigenous research methods, as found in the book “Research is
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Ceremony” are “relationality and relational accountability,” writes Shawn Wilson, an
Opaskwayak Cree scholar. Like community-centered and movement journalism, it means to offer
information that is reciprocal, between the researcher and the researched community. These
values thus inform both how research is conducted and how it is presented.
In “Research is Ceremony,” Wilson says that finding “common ground is one of the core
struggles of cross-cultural communication.Yet it is necessary so that both sides in the
communication process can begin to see or understand the same things.”
He notes that, in oral tradition, a key tactic to maintain an idea’s meaning and relational
context is “by utilizing the direct relationship between storyteller and listener. Each recognizes
the other’s role in shaping both context and process.”
In “Research is Ceremony,” Wilson writes to his children, and he regularly uses a tone
that is kind, warm and accessible. He occasionally writes in second person, too. He states that “I
further develop the relationships I have with the ideas through my relationship with my sons. I
hope that this literary tool allows you to develop your own relationships both with me and with
the ideas in this book.”
By positioning the author as in relationship with his sources and readers, he creates a
level of equality. Instead of “the expert” reporter handing down research to the unknowing
reader, Wilson believes in a writing style that is between the reader and writer. This is an
alternative to historic hierarchies prevalent in white supremacist research and journalism, where
the authoritative voice holds power over the students or readers.
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Wilson goes on to explain that it’s important to conduct research with, not on, a
community. This co-creation of knowledge should come in every step from the inception of the
research, through its production, publication and presentation. The community is not just to be
studied, but to be in relation with. Further, the community should benefit from the research; the
work should help and give back, not just extract time, resources and culture from the community.
These values are described in the “Six Rs” of respect, relationship, representation, relevance,
responsibility and reciprocity.
Thus, in hinging both the research and the communication on context and relationships,
Indigenous research methods are, in many ways, the opposite of objective reporting
positionalities. These methods require the reporter to be a part of the scene and study. They reject
the notion that a removed, outsider status is ideal – or even truly possible. Instead, the reporter
must be deeply conscious of how they relate to the people, the land, history, the impact and entire
context of their work.
Concluding thoughts on Methodology
With these tools, I hope to help you imagine a way forward.
To speak for myself, I’ve written this thesis with loved ones and friends in mind. I’ve also
written it for my past self, who felt so lost and confused while unraveling all of this. Over the last
seven years of reporting, I have long looked for warm, kind, loving guidance; critical eyes; and a
way forward, with hope for better. I have wanted someone to explain to me how to thrive in
harsh conditions. I have wanted folks to teach me how to help, not harm. I hope that, if nothing
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else, I can give you that guide – or at least a taste of it.
I hope these tools are helpful for you to consider in your practice of journalism.
While I, of course, understand that western objectivity has formed the bedrock of
centuries of data collection, observation and analysis; while I understand that much of modern
science hinges on objective modalities; while I understand there are some people who chose this
mantle of objectivity to conduct responsible and valuable research, I want to reiterate my goal:
I hope to create more space for other ways of knowing, writing, researching and
storytelling, so that journalism may be, truly, inclusive. I hope our field can move forward and do
less harm than our histories.
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Chapter Four: Putting These Values to the Test
In this section, I’ll demonstrate my own stated values, with self-reflexive analysis.
My three goals are:
- To locate myself as a reporter. This is central to engaging the relational aspect of
Indigenous methodologies. It’s essential for breaking down the hierarchy of reporters as
neutral, objective, outsiders and authorities handing information to the masses. This goal
includes noting to whom I am writing.
- To challenge and interrogate whiteness, as a key step to find a clear journalistic
positionality.
- To outline my offering, or my attempt to create reparative journalism.
Locating Myself
My government name is Jen Byers, and so is my byline. You may also know me as
someone else entirely – keep that to yourself. My pronouns are (they/them or she), and I identify
as genderqueer and non-binary – like a light being, bean sí or shield maiden. Briefly, that means
I’m someone feminine who is able to go to war; who is able to go into death; who is able to live
and tell the tale.
I grew up around Philadelphia, PA, where my mother’s family has lived for a few
generations. My heart has long been tied to the trees, the creeks, the wet earth of this unceded
Lenape land. I hope, one day, Turtle Island, and all colonized lands, can be returned to its rightful
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stewards and original inhabitants. I hope the rest of us can learn to live more kindly together. I
hope I see this in my lifetime, soon.
I’m writing this thesis from Los Angeles, which is unceded Tongva land. I have been a
resident and a visitor, on and off, since 2014. I have long been enamored with the sunsets, the
night blooming flowers and the perfect winter’s chill. I love feeling the sandy dirt underfoot, and
I wish less of this place was paved over in glamor’s chaotic concrete.
The stories you’ll soon read were reported from Seminole, Miccosukee, Mascogo and
Muscogee land. The swamps, sand and springs are now often referred to as Florida, but I hope,
soon, the tides will change, and past histories will better saturate the air, thick like humid
memories.
I write this story for my friends, my loved ones and for the future generations to pick up
our mantle and continue the quest for better.
Reckoning with Whiteness
During my time covering radical social movements, I was given two major research and
self-reflection directives, as a white reporter often working in Black and Indigenous spaces. I
believe that answering these directives is a key part of engaging in community-centered and
reparative journalism. Should the communities that journalism has harmed ask something of
reporters, I feel it’s fair to answer that request.
At Standing Rock, a prime directive for white folks was to “learn who you were before
you were white.” This was an attempt to prevent cultural appropriation and a way to get white
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folks to think about the larger histories of colonization, assimilation and our own ancestors.
In Black organizing spaces, one ask was to find out what harms your family had done,
and to find ways to repair them. This was a directive for accountability, reckoning and a first step
to paying reparations.
The following essay is my attempt to accomplish those asks.
My History
My mother’s family is Irish-Catholic, famine and pre-war immigrants, almost all of
whom hail from Inishowen, Co. Donegal, Ireland. We trickled to America between 1880 and
1918. The last two of us, my grandfather’s parents, met on the boat. They left after Easter Rising
but before the War of Independence really started. I imagine they were exhausted. I imagine they
couldn’t take it anymore.
Figure 4.1 Photos of the Famine Memorial in Dublin, Ireland, symbolizing the mass migration of
Irish people out of Ireland during the Great Hunger. (Photo via Irish Central)
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From the Irish Proclamation of Independence, 1916:
We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland,
and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and
indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and
government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be
extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every
generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom
and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have
asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again
asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the
Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our
lives and the lives of our comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom,
of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.
I often wish we had stuck around to see that proclamation through, but, alas, we came to
America, and what followed was more tragic than damning. The wars had made us sick, with
mental illness, addiction, trauma-borne, closed off and hateful of those we didn’t understand.
The worst of it comes from my grandfather’s mother, Josephine O’Neill. She’s the only one
that came from Co. Cork, but the O’Neill clan stems from Ulster — most of modern day
Northern Ireland, which remains a British colony. The O’Neills stewarded and ruled the
territory from 360 AD until the early 1600s, when the Brits invaded by the northeast coast,
waging wars to steal the land. The war, arguably, is ongoing. The invaders created plantations,
hurting those who practiced our religion and forcing us to speak English, taking away our
schools, life-ways, values and Gaelic tongue. Millions of us were displaced.
I like to romanticize the pain of this displacement, this fissure and fracture, as a means
to survive its living wake. This pain is what caused my great-grandma, my grandpa, my mom,
aunt, uncle and me... to be so goddamn sick in the head. I’d like to think: perhaps, if we had our
home again, if we relearned our ways, then perhaps, this rift would heal.
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It’s this pain, I think, that kept us relatively alone, quiet and ‘contained’ when my family
came to Philly. Simply, we imploded. Worked petty jobs. Kept mostly to our business, beating
on our own children and selves, drinking down to an early death, dying of pollution in the poor
parts of town. I have two and a half living relatives left, for now; I’m the only one in my
generation. Unless I do something, the family dies with me.
Figure 4.2 A photo of my grandmother, Francis Friel, taken in Philadelphia in the 1930s.
Figure 4.3 A photo of my grandmother and grandfather, Thomas Patrick McCafferty, on their
wedding day in Philadelphia the 1940s.
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On my mother’s mother’s side, our name can be traced to very Old Irish history –
somewhere among the Gaels, Celts and Druids. The Friels were temple-tenders up north, by the
sea and Errigal Mountain. We’re the only family line in all of Ireland who can pull Gartan Clay
from the earth, but I’ve never been taught to. Gartan Clay will keep a traveler safe while on a
journey and will protect you from burning or drowning to death.
Historically, the Gaelic peoples spoke in poems when we wanted to hear our Goddesses
or tell stories about history and the future. Our religion was based on the knowledge of the
sacred oak tree. Most Druids were slaughtered, en masse, in 57 AD, as punishment for Queen
Boudicca’s war against the Roman empire.
But, clearly, some of us survived.
Figure 4.4 A print of John William Waterhouse’s Magic Circle.
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See,
Storytellers are a consequence of human existence — someone must remember. Some of
us are born with songs in our eyes, as magpies are born with a draw to shine. All is fine and fair
and kind, until a hawk tells the magpies: you must hunt. You must live high. You must be like us.
You cannot be like this, no more.
It is not for a few generations that a hawk-trained magpie will have become so removed
from his natural perch that his obsession with collecting small, beautiful objects will seem like
an anomaly. A divergence. A subversion. An issue.
But see: the problem is not with him, X generations away from nature. The problem is
that hawks have told him, “you are a perversion, little one. Hawks do not fetch glimmer like
that.”
See, his body remembers; he is not hawk, but magpie.
Where I’m from, the poets told the future. I am not hawk, but magpie.
1
Figure 4.5 A triptych of three Irish goddesses: Morrigan, Brigid and Rhiannon. 1
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—
My father’s side, on the other hand, is far less sympathetic.
The earliest branch of us arrived in America in the 1500s. We landed in Virginia, went
west to North Carolina, where we ran an armory for settlers during the Revolutionary War.
After, we went south through Arkansas, Alabama and Georgia. In recent memory, my
granddaddy grew up in a cow town, the son of an oilfield worker, the son of a man who died
with arthritis throughout his body but a real nice watch from the company that read: Thank you
for years of service. Granddad was a Texas hick turned WW2 vet turned NASA engineer. My
grandma was a Southern belle from Georgia, an educator and a teacher who volunteered to
teach in the integrated schools, when the other white people didn’t want to. They got married in
’51, and she wore a teal tuxedo dress to the ceremony.
Figure 4.6 A photo of my grandfather, Ralph Mauney Byers, and grandmother,
Dorothy Mainor Byers, on their wedding day in the early 1950s.
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In long-term memory, the Byerses, Mainors, Mauneys and their predecessors were a
mix of aristocrats, slave owners, Masons, and Confederate soldiers — seven, to be exact. At
grandma’s dinner table stayed that terrible legacy, and we dined nightly with pictures of Lee
and Jackson at the head. My daddy sang me Whistling Dixie as a bedtime song and told me
tales of generals and infantry, as if they were the true, heroic ones. In spring 2020, I made him
choose between me and the Old South, in a near-fatal battle between his stubbornness and a
handmade noose around my neck — it’s me or the Confederate statues, Dad. As you may
surmise: I won. The monuments in our home have since been taken down,
But.
Since realizing. Internalizing. Parsing out the basics, I have been left with fear and rage
and anger. I can infer: the Masons made rituals for the Klan, like Mississippi’s Alfred Pike —
though I did witness his icon fall in flames, in the summer of 2020. Aristocrats made the south
and all its persecution — one ancestor of mine, a DeVane, founded Selma, for example.
Another branch owned a man named Sam. The gunmetal gray soldiers, my ancestor
Confederates, whose voices still scream horrors in my head, were made from a mixture of
racist nationalism and foaming propaganda. Great-great-someone had to bury her silver in the
backyard, when Sherman came a-marching.
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Figure 4.7 A photo of my great-grandfather, James Thaddeus Mainor, in his Masonic regalia.
Likely from the 1910s or 1920s.
Figure 4.8 Drawings of my great-great grandparents.
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I have lives and lifetimes to pay back, on their behalf. Debts bigger than I, alone, could ever
cover. I have spent years racking my brain to come up with an answer to the question: how the
fuck am I going to do this?
So, here is what I offer, for now:
A manual for turncoats. A guidebook for us traitors. A map of all the ways I have found
out. An offering, scaled. This is a challenge to the ideas that have held up harm against people
who didn’t deserve it. This is a refutation — of whiteness and the stories it’s incurred.
See, I am a descendent, both of people who deserved better and people who should have
done better. Between these two worlds I stand, and now, I think, I must pick a side.
Figure 4.9 A photo taken of a dead and decaying cow. Upon seeing this, I reflected on how all
empires fall. (Photo by jen byers, Feb. 2017)
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My Offering
The next and final chapter is part of a storytelling project that I intend to make my life’s
work for the coming years.
The collection of stories, called Turncoat: Transmissions from the Underground, will
document the histories of people currently fighting for our lives.
It will be a series of non-fiction reporting, presented as audio stories and episodic
magazines. My hope is that these tales may serve as a guidebook for people who feel
uncomfortable in the current paradigms of white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism,
hierarchy and cis-sexism. My hope is to share stories of survival, and with that, to document
and increase collective resilience. My hope is to write them with these updated journalistic
ethics, to inspire my colleagues and readers to write stories that share these ethics and
commitments to better.
As such, Turncoat will be an attempt at reparative and restorative journalism. It will
address harms done by historic reporting, give a platform to marginalized communities and
allow for folks to show ourselves from an insider’s perspective.
Over the next few years, I hope to add many more issues to Turncoat, as I travel and
interview many more people. My hope here is to preserve histories of resistance, rebellion and
survival, on our own terms. I hope that, through that preservation, I may make up for some of
the past harms – made both by the media and my own ancestors.
The chapter below is an example of what, perhaps, that narrative repair might look like.
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2
Figure 4.10 A collection of definitions of ‘turncoat.’ 2
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3
Figure 4.11 A collection of definitions of ‘journalist’ and ‘activist.’ 3
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4
Figure 4.12 A collection of a definition of ‘storyteller.’ 4
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Chapter Five: Sample Reporting
Turncoat: Transmissions from the Underground.
‘Florida’
“These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone.”
– Roald Dahl
5
Spike, 2023.
5 Figure 5.1
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April 2023: Alchemy
Spike is late. Spike is running late, through the Florida Capitol. It feels like a
goddamned labyrinth in here. How many bridges are there? How many hallways? How
many rooms? Why does everything look the same? Jesus Christ, he found it.
He smooths out the pride flag round his waist, turns to his best friend, Kyle, and they
walk in together.
They take a deep breath and ready themselves for the legislative session. They’re in
Tallahassee, to give comment on anti-abortion and anti-trans bills, as part of a week-long event
called “Occupy Tally.” Folks have come together from all across the state to fight for their
lives.
Figure 5.2 Trans rights protestors hang flags in the Florida state legislature.
(Photo via Spike, April 2023)
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Spike’s wearing a blue denim vest, baggy shorts and platform chucks. Across his vest
are hand-sewn patches, reading “ACAB.” “Fuck Nazis.” “DEAD MEN DON’T CATCALL.”
“Girl. Boy. NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS.” On the back of his battle vest are a
rainbow and a trans flag, stuck on with safety pins.
Next to him, Kyle, dons a black denim jacket with a red hoodie underneath. Their
dark pants have hand-sewn patches, like Spike’s vest, and they’ve got a black metal brace on
their left knee, all bionic and almost cyberpunk. Their hair, bleached blonde matches Spike’s
swoop.
Spike and Kyle go to sit with their group, and they’re surrounded mostly by queer and
trans teens, a few adults and their allies. They all hold signs saying “Protect Trans Kids,” in
blue and pink. They’re all, like Spike and Kyle, dressed in unique flair. Pink and purple hair,
graphic tees and tattoos. Each individual their own style; each alike in their commitment to
expression, distinction, bioluminescence.
Spike squeezes in next some teenagers from the delegation, trans youth he takes care
of. At 21, he already feels like an elder.
Across the aisle are the lawmakers, council members and representatives. They sit in
rows, like a grove of stern oak trees. Each has their own name-tag and microphone. The
lawmakers are in suits, with short, combed hair. They’re monotonous in their grays and blacks
and ties — a rigid contrast from the rainbows, dyes and prints. The legislative desks, layered in
concentric arcs, rise up, like a chorus, over groundlings in the public pit. Quite literally, the reps
must talk down to address the people.
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Though everyone is there to comment on the upcoming anti-trans bathroom bill, HB
1521, the first few hours of this session are about auto insurance bills, the most boring topic
imaginable — excruciating, overgrown bureaucracy. It feels hellish; it feels intentional, almost
like a filibuster.
Spike tries as hard as he can to not fall asleep. He writes his speech on his phone. He
writes about being a medically transitioned intersex and trans guy. He writes how awkward it
would be for him to be forced to use a women's restroom, in line with his “sex assigned at birth.”
He waits, nervous. He does his best to make sure the kids are awake and okay.
Finally, HB 1521 comes to the floor. It is described as a “public decency law,” parroting
a fear mongering narrative about “women getting attacked by men in bathrooms.” This law
relies on two ideas, neither based in fact: that trans women are actually men in dresses, and that
they’re highly likely to hurt cis women in the restroom. The proposed penalty for being caught
in the “wrong” bathroom would be misdemeanor charges, and it would impact businesses,
healthcare and educational spaces, at least.
The bill defines people by their reproductive organs, defining female as “a person
belonging, at birth to the biological sex which has the specific reproductive role of producing
eggs” and male as “a person belonging, at birth to the biological sex which has the specific
reproductive role of producing sperm.”
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Figure 5.3 Spike (R) and three trans rights activists pose with rainbow flags and a sign.
(Photo via Spike, April 2023)
Up to the stand come testimony after testimony, a line mostly of trans people talking
about their lives, their gender, their safety and how this bill would hurt them. One speaker makes
comparisons between Florida’s law and Nazi Germany. A trans woman, talks about how she was
sexually harassed, just before the session, by a cis man in the hall. She makes it clear: trans
people are more likely to be threatened than to be a threat. A man with a deep voice and cropped
hair, like the lawmakers, comes to advocate for himself — he’s trans. Does he really belong in
the women’s room?
Spike tells me later, “you could see that on their faces, they had not thought of ‘passing’
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trans men. A lot of trans people do choose to medically transition, but it’s brushed off to the
side.”
He goes on, “trans guy erasure is a real factor...Trans men are excluded from the
conversation because of how we’re viewed, as somehow ‘lost girls’ that need to be saved and
coddled and babied.”
Spike smiles and tells me a few stories of people not realizing he was trans… until he told them.
“Anyone who I don’t tell doesn’t notice,” says Spike. “They think I’m a cis gay guy
helping the trans community.”
Figure 5.4 Spike and another trans rights activist stand in the road outside of
the Florida State House. (Photo via Spike, April 2023)
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Back on the floor, a trans woman, in her 70s or 80s goes to speak. The trans kids and
teenagers around Spike watch her, in awe. Their eyes follow her every movement, and their ears
are rapt on each word she says. One by one, the kids begin to cry, overwhelmed.
“They saw she was able to exist that long without getting killed… Trans life expectancy
is, like, 30 or 31. A lot of trans people don’t see themselves growing up to be adults,” Spike
explains. “Before they saw her, a lot of them didn’t realize it was possible to be an old trans
person.”
6
Figure 5.5 A poster stating ‘The trans agenda is an average life expectancy.’ (Illustration by jen byers) 6
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As the testimonies go on, one by one, the opponents to the bathroom bill become
mentally drained. Amidst the speeches, filled with sentiments like “I fuckin’ exist,” and “let me
not die,” most members of the pro-trans side, about 90% of the session room, get up and leave.
By the end of the comments, Spike and Kyle are some of the few people left. The elder
trans woman is also still in the room, across the way.
It’s only then, after impassioned speeches, the facts and calls for acceptance… it’s then,
after most people have left… It’s then, facing only a few opponents, that Rep. Webster Barnaby,
takes the mic, staring down Spike and Kyle from his seat on high.
“I feel like I’m watching an X Men movie…with mutants among us on planet earth, and
some people don’t like that, but that's a fact,” says Barnaby. His voice is so calm and even-paced,
you would think he was reading from a playbook.
“We have people that live among us today on planet Earth that are happy to display
themselves as if they were mutants from another planet,” he continues. “THIS IS THE
PLANET EARTH. Where God created MEN male, and WOMEN, female.” His voice
approaches a yell.
“I’m a proud Christian conservative Republican. I’m not on the fence,” his voice has
gone down in volume, but crackles with clear disgust. “There is so much darkness in our world
today, so much evil in our world today. And so many people who are afraid to address the evil,
the dysphoria, the dysfunction.”
“The lord rebukes you Satan, and all of your demons and all of your imps,” Barnaby
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says, looking directly at Spike and Kyle. “Yes, that’s right. I called you demons and imps, who
come and parade before us and pretend that you are part of this world. So, I’m saying my
righteous indignation is stirred. I am sick and tired of this. I’m not going to put up with it. You
can test me and try to take me on. But I promise you I’ll win every time.”
Figure 5.6 A protest sign for a trans rights rally. (Photo via Spike, April 2023)
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Spike and Kyle are stunned, frozen furious. A representative from Kissimmee tries to
say something comforting, but nothing really lands after that. The council-member desks have
become a pulpit; the public pit has been deemed hell itself.
In this scene that the bathroom bill passes. It becomes illegal for trans people to use the
restroom.
As the final gavel cracks down, Spike and Kyle lose it with righteous indignation, dams
of frustration breaking, grief and sorrow and rage expelled.
Kyle yells, “shame on you for not listening to us! Shame on you for participating in MY
genocide!”
Spike joins, hurting, “there’s a separation of church and state for a reason!”
The lawmakers look on with disdain and annoyance, cocked eyebrows, wrinkled noses
and the stench of unchecked power. The next speaker comes in, trying to hush the room and
says, “thank you, Mr. Chairman.”
Spike and Kyle have booked it; the banality of evil has prevailed, today.
After leaving the session room, Spike and Kyle run as fast as they can, ducking between
hallways, staircases and crevices. They need to evade the police, as any outburst, however
righteous, in the Capitol is punished with arrest, and they’re really not trying to go to jail today.
They flip their clothes inside out, trying to make themselves look a little bit less
conspicuous, before bursting outside, to meet the rest of the contingent and tell them the bad
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news.
Immediately, in a hot-tear’d fury, Spike watches Kyle take off his black jacket, turning it
inside out. He grabs his favorite stencils and a dollar store paintbrush, inspired. Kyle smooths the
denim out, making sure it won’t crease or wrinkle. In a spell, he begins to paint six letters, like
the number of the beast: revelation, death, apocalypse.
The paint drips down and settles its running course.
M-U-T-A-N-T
A marker. A curse. A reclamation. Alchemy at its finest.
If they are to be treated as demons, they might as well look fucking cool.
Figure 5.7 Kyle sits with his new jacket art.
(Photo via Spike, April 2023)
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How did we get here?
Erin Reed tucks her brown hair behind her ears and goes, once more, over her research.
Erin is a trans woman I follow online, who encyclopedically tracks queer issues and anti-trans
legislation nationwide. In 2023 alone, she tells me, at least 591 anti-trans bills have been
introduced across the United States.
“The legislative stuff exploded this session,” she says.
As of December 2023, 85 have passed. 377 are active. At least 36 are federal 129 have
failed or been vetoed — Erin predicted this would happen, as she believed there would be
“good news from the courts.”
But, some progressive, pro-trans bills have been vetoed, too.
The 85 passed anti-trans bills are in 24 states: Alabama (2), Arkansas (8), Florida (5),
Georgia (1), Iowa (3), Idaho (3), Indiana (3), Kansas (5), Kentucky (2), Louisiana (1),
Missouri (3), Mississippi (1), Montana (7), North Carolina (3), North Dakota (11), Nebraska
(1), Oklahoma (3), South Dakota (1), Tennessee (11), Texas (4), Utah (4), Wisconsin (1), West
Virginia (1) and Wyoming (1).
And, across the country, these battles reign.
Some of the most high-profile and public of these battles have been in Florida, under
the leadership of Republican Governor and Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis.
Five of the most discussed anti-trans bills are in Florida, and they restrict things like:
- The teaching of reproductive health, gender and sexuality in schools
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- The ability of a trans person to use a gender-affirming bathroom
- The ability for a trans child to transition, while giving courts the ability to remove
trans children from gender affirming families
- The funding of diversity, equity and inclusion in higher ed as well as restrictions that
make it illegal to teach subjects like critical race theory
- A removal of diverse identity considerations from military recruitment and practice.
The Sunshine State is a unique mixture of Caribbean, deep south, evangelical, queer
and progressive. It’s a place where you can go from a super-gay Britney Spears-themed,
integrated nightclub… to the site of a historic lynching, pretty quickly. In fact, Florida had the
highest amount of lynchings of any state from 1900 - 1930, but today, it also has the 3rd
highest number of gay couples of any state nationwide.
Practically, those statistics manifest in split, very blue and very red sections throughout
the state. Florida is spotted, town-by-town, with shocking differences in population, values and
cultural history.
To illustrate my point:
In September 2023, Nazis marched in Florida.
Near Altamonte Springs and Disney World Resorts, they were out for the Labor Day weekend.
They sieg-heil’d down the streets and screamed about how the white race is under attack.
They are met with limited resistance, and Governor DeSantis has said nothing to stop it.
In fact, they’re part of his voting block. They often come with his flags: DeSantis 2024.
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The U.S.-based National Socialist Movement’s leader lives in Kissimmee, Florida — a
kitschy tourist town not 15 miles southeast east of Disney World. But the march was attended
by dozens of out-of-town Nazi groups, from as far away as California, Maine and Canada.
Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida’s contribution to the 2024 Presidential race, has
repeatedly refused to condemn Nazi activity in his state. In January 2022, he said that being
asked to denounce Nazi support was an effort to “smear” him, “as if [he] had something to do
with it.” In July 2023, a DeSantis staffer reposted a video with Neo-Nazi imagery. Though the
staffer was fired, DeSantis has refused to denounce Neo-Nazism. He just says, simply, that the
Nazis are “not true supporters” of him and his campaign.
What Gov. Ron DeSantis does denounce though… is drag shows. Trans children and
their families. Students protesting genocide. Black liberation, history and critical race theory.
Immigrants. Abortion. Intersectionality.
Across Florida, “Anti-Woke” sentiments have taken root, and they’ve become a dog
whistle for anyone who vehemently hates oppressed people fighting for better. Across the state,
you’ll find memorabilia of these this movements, from billboards to “Stop Woke Corporations''
posted on the highways; bumper stickers touting slogans like “Florida, where woke goes to die"
and “DeSantis 2024: Make America Florida”; and countless cringe t-shirts, like “Desantisland,”
in the style of Disney’s logo.
It’s not uncommon for this prejudice to be paired with conspiratorial mentions of
QAnon, pedophiles, political cabals and accelerationism — grating conversations that you
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will be pulled into as you are just trying to go about your day. Ma’am, this is a Wendy’s, and I
don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to tell you, when it seems a critical mass of this state
has given way to misinformation and doubled down on bigotry.
In the wake of this spread, and the rising cost of living, fearful people are leaving —
whether by choice, flight or deportation — and conservatives are moving in. Florida is the #1
state people want to move out of and also want to move to. On queer social media, it’s not
uncommon to see GoFundMes for trans refugees – individuals, couples, families and polycules
hoping to find safety in a less-threatening place.
These collective, sweeping social and economic changes have resulted, more or less, in
Florida turning from a purple to a red state and the “center of the Republican universe,” per a
Vox report. The state, which went Blue twice for President Obama, has now become an
extremely public example of right-wing “goals.”
Tactically, the original “Don’t Say Gay” laws were pushed through the guise of
“protecting children,” based on the ideas that kids aren’t “ready” to make permanent changes to
their bodies, or be exposed to “inappropriate,” “sexual” content. But, in November 2023,
Florida State Rep. Ryan Chamberlin introduced a bill that would extend DeSantis’s “Don’t Say
Gay” bill to the workplace, to outlaw grown adults’ ability to be addressed by their affirming
gender, pronouns and identity.
These bills were never really about Saving the Children.
Thus, Florida has entered a new phase: an attempt to limit adult transgender freedom, a
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severe escalation, in an already boiling pot. It seems this politic may be the tip of the iceberg –
a high-profile enactment of a plan to deeply, fundamentally change the status of freedom and
bodily autonomy for everyone in America.
Project 2025: A National Threat.
A group of conservative think tanks, who previously architected the movements for
mass incarceration, anti-abortion legislation and the defunding of public schools, released the
2025 Project. The project includes fast-action playbooks and a nearly 900-page "Mandate for
Leadership", illustrating how to turn the United States into a “conservative victory.”
Some of the 2025 Project’s goals for this victory include realigning all departments of
the federal government and saving “the very moral foundations of our society.” To do that, they
wish to fight “the toxic normalization of transgenderism,” “stop the messaging on wokeness
and diversity,” “improve the rapid deployment of technology to the battlefield” and reify the
values of “self-governance, the rule of law, and ordered liberty.” Project 2025 argues that,
“illegal immigration should be ended, not mitigated; the border sealed, not reprioritized.” It
paints a picture of a future with less queer people, less diversity, less immigration and more
militarization.
Erin Reed explains that these attacks are both “part of something that has been a dark
part of American cultural history for a long time” and “organized by a very small group of
people,” like the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Heritage Foundation. The Alliance for
Defending Freedom, in particular, is a legal enclave that was behind anti-trans bathroom bills
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and has attempted to push anti-trans legislation in multiple states, for years.
Erin says that, “They're using the exact same tactics that they use to shut down abortion
clinics and to ‘end abortion,’…to now target gender affirming care.”
These tactics include the use of pathos-driven language like the “Heartbeat Bill” to first
criminalize abortion, and now “Vulnerable Child Protection Act” to outlaw trans children
having access to gender affirming care. The impact of these policies and tactics has drummed
up a moral panic about the safety of children and fetuses… a panic which has minimal basis in
reality.
Despite amply documented evidence that the primary threats to trans children are
bullying, sexual assault, harassment, homelessness, suicide and ideation, self-harm and state
sponsored erasure… the “safety” of LGBTQ+ children has been engaged as a vehicle to push
these policies, which ultimately limit bodily autonomy and increase social prejudice for all
queer people.
Erin says, “it’s clear that this is being orchestrated and organized by a group of
essentially right-wing Christian fascists that want to bring about God's reign on earth. Like,
we've got quotes from these people that claim that transgender people are demons.”
In the wake of this social and legislative movement, efforts to dehumanize and target
queer, trans and marginalized people have spread, and the journalistic coverage of all of this…
has not really been ideal.
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Journalism done fucked up.
According to GLAAD, media representation of queer and trans people is about 20 years
behind the conversations queer and trans people have within our communities. Given the wave
of recent attacks, that gap might have even grown wider.
A Democratic organizer from Florida named Nathan Breummer explains that, “these
policies have seeded so much doubt in people. People are asking questions they never have
before, to the point where it almost feels like we’ve backpedaled so much. They are questioning
our very existence.”
Breummer is a trans man who became an activist in high school, before going to law
school. These days, he teaches community workshops for queer and trans kids and families,
going over laws and self-defense strategies... for dangerous situations like how to safely escape
being approached by a bigot when you’re trying to use the restroom.
On July 1, 2023, a bathroom bill came into effect in Florida. It says that, if someone uses
a state-owned public bathroom, like at a school or government building, that is different from
their sex assigned at birth, they can be charged with a second-degree trespassing misdemeanor.
The charge amounts to up to 60 days in jail or a fine.
“Since Obergefell [the Supreme Court case that legalized gay marriage], we’ve had about
a decade of progress. But now, it’s backsliding,” Breummer explains.
“Even some of the way this has been covered in the media is regressive. The New York
Times, for example,” says Nathan, nodding to reportage that has been decried by queer and trans
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people as deeply inappropriate if not outright TERF-y.
Tuck Woodstock, a trans person and media analyst says of the Times’s coverage, “what if
you were writing a profile on someone named Janet, and I was your editor, and I was like, ‘I’m
sorry, for balance, find someone who wants to kill Janet?’”
Woodstock asks “Is ‘balance’ multiple people? Is it people with opposite opinions? And
what would it mean to have opposite opinions? So if I was interviewing a young, white, public
school teacher who says, ‘I think kids should learn about racism in schools.’ Okay, what is the
balance to that? Is it a black teacher, an old teacher, a principal, a student, a parent. This is a
public school teacher, so maybe it's someone who doesn't believe in public schools. Maybe it's
someone who doesn't believe in racism.”
Woodstock highlights that balance in trans stories does not need to be someone who is
pro-trans and someone who is anti-trans. Instead, balance could mean hearing from a plethora of
perspectives engaged in the issue. This might result in a more complex look at trans people and
trans issues, less printed polarization and existential questions and thus a less harmful portrayal
of the community.
Woodstock explains that the media often reports about trans issues with a level of
immediacy or urgency that doesn’t really exist in the lived experience of trans folks. And,
whether that urgency is a result of genuine ignorance or malice, the reality is that it is causung
harm to trans people.
In a conversation with Woodstock, journalist Sarah Marshall says of the Times, “for
better or worse, the New York Times, arguably, is the paper of record for the mainstream and
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left-of-center United States. And their handling of trans issues, and really gender and sexuality
generally, has been horrible. My summary of their discussion of trans rights is basically, ‘Should
trans people exist? Or should they exist to such an extent? Experts disagree.’”
Typically, issues like trans kids’ access to medical care, trans bathroom bills or trans kids’
legal right to play sports with members of their affirmed gender are treated like a “both sides”
issue, where pundits are given the opportunity to voice support or opposition to these policies.
But, as Woodstock says, a lot of people believe their ‘balance’ is off. Research on trans
children largely agrees that people know their gender by age 6 and keep it throughout their lives.
The regret rate for gender affirming care is about 1% – that’s less than the vast majority of
surgeries.
Despite this practice of imbalance, the NYT is still the paper of record, so coverage has
very much impacted public policy and opinion. As Breummer says, it’s possible that queer and
trans issues have even backslid in public acceptance. It seems that almost every day, state
legislatures are finding new ways to try and outlaw transition.
In attempt to fight this negative impact, over 170 current and former contributors to the
New York Times signed an open letter in February 2023. They noted “serious concerns about
editorial bias in the newspaper’s reporting on transgender, non-binary, and gender
nonconforming people.”
The NYT contributors cited examples like when an article “uncritically used the term
‘patient zero’ to refer to a trans child seeking gender-affirming care, a phrase that vilifies
transness as a disease to be feared”; another article where a source was “identified as an
individual person speaking about a personal choice to detransition, rather than the President of
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GCCAN, an activist organization that pushes junk science and partners with explicitly anti-trans
hate groups”; and a feature called “When Students Change Gender Identity and Parents Don’t
Know” that, the contributors said “misframed the battle over children’s right to safely transition.”
The NYT contributors acknowledged that poor coverage had directly impacted and been
used as support for harmful policies passed in a court of law. They noted that, in an Alabama
hearing for the Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act (as pioneered by Alliance
Defending Freedom), “the brief cited three different New York Times articles to justify its support
of the law.”
The letter also acknowledged the New York Times’s historic problematic coverage of gay
issues, including its slow response to publishing news about the HIV/AIDS crisis – they waited
until at least 500 people had died, before reporting on the issue. The letter noted a larger, harmful
track record demeaning LGBTQ+ people, including a 1963 article called a front-page article in
support of conversion therapy, called “Growth of Overt Homosexuality in City Provokes Wide
Concern,” which “stated that homosexuals saw their own sexuality as ‘an inborn, incurable
disease’—one that scientists, the Times announced, now thought could be ‘cured.’”
After its publication, the Times letter received at least 1,200 signatures from other
contributors, as well as 34,000 media workers, Times readers and subscribers.
In response, the New York Times has been, internally, at a crossroads. Vanity Fair
reported that there is a larger ongoing battle between so-called “activism” and “objectivity.”
Though it issued a correction to the “patient zero” article, New York Times leadership has also
attempted to diminish the dissenting voices of its contributors, calling them “advocates.”
Historically, the paper has not been great at apologizing, and it struggled to meet the demands for
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a racial reckoning back in 2020.
As the writers of the critical letter note, “real, sustained change will come from these
people standing up for themselves, their friends, their colleagues, and their loved ones.”
As for the Times, and the rest of the mainstream media, it seems like in the coming
election cycle and beyond, they’ll likely have ample opportunity to test their values, their bravery
and their willingness to engage in the protection of human rights.
What’s coming next?
As Nathan Breummer and Erin Reed note, conversations about trans peoples’ validity of
existence have made it to almost all reaches of the American political psyche. At the Republican
presidential debates, candidates like Vivek Ramaswamy have emphatically expressed the belief
that “transgenderism is a mental illness.”
His quip, and the “existential questions” posed by irresponsible media outlets and
“gender critical” civilians alike, harkens back to a long history of cruelty against the LGBTQ+
community. Until 1973, it was considered a mental illness to be gay. It is still considered a DSM
diagnosis to have “gender dysphoria,” a key experience of being nonbinary or trans, where it
becomes clear and feels painful that you’re living in the wrong body.
Though the gender dysphoria diagnosis is largely seen to be just for the requirements of
getting access to medical care, its history is not neutral. It was common, since the very opening
of mental institutions, for LGBTQ+ people to be forcibly committed, sterilized and/or subject to
conversion therapy. As per Foucault, the ultimate goal of the mental institutions was to remove
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LGBTQ+ people from society, to reinforce a cis-normative, heterosexual, patriarchal society,
where deviations from these norms was punishable by removal, abuse and medical torture.
And, it seems like with the recent attacks, the “mental illness” aspect of anti-LGBTQ+
discrimination is coming to the fore, again.
This pattern, of an LGBTQ+ person being targeted for excessive “mental health
concerns” is a deeply familiar pattern to most queer and trans people, it’s just usually in our
homes, struggles and private life… not also on the news. It’s a common, if not canon, experience
for the burdens of a dysfunctional family to fall on us, often under the umbrella of, if you could
just be normal, the rest of us would be fine. Oddly, it is often this stigmatization and singling out
that contributes to dangers like self-harm and self-mutilation.
To speak personally, but to acknowledge an often-heard sentiment, so much of my own
self harm and so many of my suicide attempts came from a place of feeling… completely
unwelcome, unsafe, unseen and blamed by my family, school or workplace. The mark of
queerness, of difference, laid the foundation for me to be a target, which people, unwilling to
deal with their own problems, would project onto and bully.
To quote bell hooks, “‘queer' not as being about who you're having sex with (that can be
a dimension of it); but 'queer' as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and
that has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”
Currently, that at-oddness is a target, again. I’ll repeat: right-wing folks are literally
calling to “eradicate” transgenderism, a key and beloved family of queerness.
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A long history of eradication, assimilation.
These calls for eradication are not new. They’re not unique to the contemporary,
American right-wing politic. They can, in fact, be traced to almost every foundation of
nationalistic, violent, expansionist agenda, worldwide. From the attacks on Two-Spirit people by
American colonization and forced cultural assimilation; to the looting and book burnings of the
Institute of Sexology by The Third Reich of Nazi Germany; to the Lavender Scare of the 1950s;
the recent Russian gay bar raids, following decades of assaults on “decadence”; Uganda’s
sweeping anti-LGBTQ+ policies; India’s recent rejection of same-sex marriage; to the global
history of social cleansing through conversion therapy and forced commitment to mental
asylums… violence against LGBTQ+ people is an key aspect and indicator of political shifts
towards authoritarianism.
In Nazi Germany, police arrested over 100,000 gay men during their round ups, with at
least 10-15,000 sent to concentration camps. At the camps, Nazis forced gay men to wear
armbands with pink triangles, and about 65% of the prisoners died — either murdered, worked to
death or by suicide.
It’s unclear what the statistics were for lesbians, trans people and other groups under the
LGBTQ+ umbrella. But, pre-WW2, Berlin was an absolute mecca for queer and trans people,
with nightclubs, culture production and vast community life. Some of the Nazis’ first attacks on
autonomy involved attacking LGBTQ+ communities. Famous pictures of early book burnings
were actually for books about gender affirming care, and in 1935, Nazis looted one of the first
known trans care clinics.
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To this day, these histories are undercovered and under acknowledged in the mainstream;
a lapse of fact that has made it all too easy for history to begin repeating itself.
These historic movements towards eradication and removal are hinged on the practice of
“dehumanization,” which dovetails quite plainly with Ron DeSantis’s policies and the Nazis
marching at Disney.
Dehumanization of marginalized people is straight out of the Nazi playbook.
Dehumanization, n.
The process of depriving a person or group of positive human qualities.
eg. Nazi, fascist and right-wing attacks on minority groups rely on the tactic of dehumanization.
Dehumanization is largely understood to occur in five stages:
1. Hinting at the subpar intelligence or morality of a group
1. ex. calling LGBTQ+ people “demons” and “groomers.”
2. The use of infestation analogies
1. ex. The concerns of trans athletes infiltrating sports; open quotes about
infestations in school and public life.
3. References and comparisons to animals
1. ex. A hoax that spread widely after concerns that students may soon request
“litter boxes” in bathroom; extensive “slippery slope” arguments about, after gay
marriage, people will want to marry animals.
4. Threats of violence
1. ex. Bomb threats to hospitals offering gender-affirming care. Attacks to drag
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shows and LGBTQ+ friendly establishments.
5. The removal of the group from society.
1. The open calls for trans eradication from the 2025 Project, right-wing
politicians and their followers.
To wit, dehumanization is a key step in genocide. Number four, according to the
International Holocaust Museum. Genocide has long been a key tactic to the creation and
maintenance of the U.S. and other settler states. In this present moment, these attacks against
queer and trans people are just the latest flare up — one called “a fash creep” (short for fascist
creep) by leftists, Antifascists and their supporters.
So, it’s not like I’m crazy for highlighting the Nazis at Disney and the proclamations
about “demons.” These instances may be an alarm bell, for a national, if not global, resurgence
of fascism — the propensity towards dehumanizing, genocidal policy and social praxis.
So, what do we do?
Trusting Erin’s sensibilities and knowledge, I ask her, “What can we do to stop this?”
And, she tells me, “I think that we get liberation through cultural acceptance and
through getting people to know transgender people.”
“If you look at public opinion polling at the very beginning of that fight, in like the
1990s. You'll note that 73, 75% of people were opposed to gay marriage. And then, about 15
years later, that swung the entire opposite direction. It was like 75% of people are in favor of
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gay marriage.
“And the way that that happened wasn't through, you know, studies on gay people and
stuff like that. The way that that happened is because as more people came out. You couldn't
just hate the gays. They weren't this ephemeral other, like, you had to hate your, your sister,
your your friend, your your parent, your sibling. And it's a lot harder to hate somebody that
you know and love already. It creates this cognitive dissonance.
“And I think that moving forward, what I'm most hopeful for, and what I advocate for,
is like, if you want to be a good ally, as this this person if you want to, if you want to help
better understand trans people, the biggest thing you can do is like be friends with a trans
person, consume content from trans people. There are good trans writers, trans creators, trans
video people, trans podcasters, trans singers, and get to know them, like, like, watch their
content and be friends with trans people.
“They’re in your community. Trans people exist in our communities, and we are
increasingly becoming common. And in some ways, I think that like, whenever I'm hopeful
about the future, I view this as an inevitability because nothing that they do will stop us from
coming out.”
Come out, I heard. Let people get to know you, I gathered.
So, I said.
Okay.
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Figure 5.8 This comic is a gif! And as such, some of the panels do not fully function in .PDF
form. (Comic by zifei Zhang)
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Now, before we go on, I want to clarify something: I identify as nonbinary and
genderqueer, but I don’t really identify as trans. However, I do experience gender dysphoria.
I’ve been making gender affirming modifications to myself since about 2010, and I have never
felt aligned with my assigned gender at birth. So, I don’t really identify as cis, either. I identify
as a secret third thing – the words for which I haven’t quite come up with.
If you’re not queer, and you don’t understand what I’m saying — that’s fine! Do a little
research on all these words, and know: gender is really expansive, and we’re each the experts
of our own experience.
For any newbies in the audience, I do want to clarify that a lot of people who are
nonbinary also identify as trans. Some people say that all nonbinary people are trans, because
we are not cis. These are conversations actively being had within LGBTQ+ community, and it’s
likely the language and frameworks will continue to morph, evolve and change. Ultimately, it’s
up to the individual how they identify.
I personally consider myself to be in solidarity with trans people, and I also believe that
acceptance of nonbinary genders is inherently in-kind with trans liberation. I, for one, would
have benefitted from having access to puberty blockers, education about queer genders and a
technical awareness of “gender dysphoria” as a young person. I came into my gender in the era
where eating disorders were our puberty blockers, and you still had to import binders from
another country, because they didn’t exist in the U.S. yet. I write this story, so other people can
have the knowledge to live easier than I did.
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To declare my positionality, I write this story as a queer and non-binary person, a
member of LGBTQ+ communities for decades. I write this as a friend, loved one, neighbor and
family member to trans people. I write this as an egg cracker (lmao, iykyk x_x). And I write
this as someone whose love language is “doing everything they can to protect their friends.”
So, with that in mind, let me take you there.
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things
which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
(Revelations 1:3)
June 2023: Exile.
Figure 5.9 The Southwest Chief.
(Photo by jen byers, June 2023)
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I’m cozied up to sleep, as the train begins to slow.
“W-where are we?” I ask my new friend.
Across the aisle, he lifts his sunglasses.
“Somewhere in the California desert, I think. Still a long ways to go.”
“Mmm,” I mutter, and snuggle back into my cocoon.
The sweet rails come to a lull, and the jitters wake me up. I rub my eyes and yawn,
annoyed, “I guess I’m not getting to sleep yet, huh.”
—
A woman comes on board, and checks her ticket above my row. “I think I’m your
seatmate.”
“Yes ma’am,” I nod, and my voice has automatically switched into a southern drawl. That
is never a good sign; politesse is how I know, in my nerves before my head, that I’m not safe –
old traveler’s trick, y’see.
She sets her bags down, lays out a blanket, puts her neck pillow on and takes her shoes
off. Those dogs reek.
Through the smell, I try to be polite. “So, where ya headed?”
“Oklahoma City via Kansas. You?”
“Me too, ma’am. Well, I’m on my way to Florida, but I’m stopping in Okie along the
way.”
She nods.
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Her glasses are rectangular and beige. Her hair’s in a bob with bangs, gray and brown
striped. She’s got a sweater on and a long plaid skirt. A single woman, alone on the train; in an
alternate world, she could probably be my mom – just about the right age for that.
We make conversation and find out: we both love puzzles. We love to read. We think
there’s not been enough quality literature written, lately, about America. We wish our history was
preserved more elegantly. I smile. Maybe I got her wrong. Until –
“So what are you about to do in Florida?”
“Oh, well I’m a reporter…” I say. She raises an eyebrow, oh no. “I’m on my way to
research Ron DeSantis and his impact.”
“Ah,” she said, with an attempt at wisdom in her voice. “I know a lot of people who
really like what he’s doing down there.”
Bingo. The drawl knew.
“Oh, really? I say. Why’s that?”
She sniffs her nose and shows herself. “Well, you and I would probably disagree on these
things. But I think he’s doing a great job.”
I love being profiled in my PJs – all black with a bandana round my neck. I haven’t
spoken a single word about what I believe in. She don’t know anything about me. Oh, but she
can tell. Maybe it’s the dagger earrings.
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Figure 5.10 A flaming bisexual rides the train, hoping to ruin the lives of America’s bigots.
“People your age are always so disagreeable. You people need to learn to disagree.”
“Oh,” I say. That’s interesting. I really haven’t told her anything at all.
She goes on to explain how my generation is panicking, and it’s really annoying her so
much. We’re wrecking the Pax Americana, and we need to settle down. “Ron DeSantis knows…
he’s doing everything he can to tell it like it is. To bring the peace back. To teach you kids a
lesson.”
“Well ma’am,” I say, sitting up to take my place. “I don’t know if you can tell,” and I
look her up and down. “But maybe you can. But… you know I’m LGBTQ, right? You know he’s
trying to hurt people like me?”
She is unphased. Of course she knew. “Well, I just disagree with your lifestyle, so. I
support him.”
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This bitch. It’s, like, 30 hours to our damn stop. “I mean, how the hell do you think we
feel about yours, you ugly fuckin’ hag?” And I lock eye contact, hard.
(Just kidding, I only said that in my head.)
I sit up a bit taller and turn to my friend across the aisle, Are you hearing this? My
eyebrows say. He nods. What the fuck?
“Anyway,” I turn back to her. “You do realize… he’s pulling out of the Nazi playbook,
right?”
“Oh, well, I don’t know about that.”
“No, I mean. Like he is. Banning books. Kicking out the queers. Calling the immigrants a
plague. They already tried to start a registry for us in Texas.”
She looks, to be fair, a little surprised. “Well, I don’t know anything about that.”
I just stare at her. It’s 30 hours til our stop. Ugh.
She tucks up her blanket and makes it clear she’s going to go to sleep, instead of face it.
This particular tactic looks rehearsed, like she and her husband argue before bed, too. An oddly
sapphic cosplay, honestly. “Well, what can I say? We live in a republic!”
And, I guess, that’s that.
I’m stuck. My corner cocoon has now become, not just smelly, but so damn dearly
uncomfy. My friend in the sunglasses found it in him to get some shut eye, and I wince. What the
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hell am I supposed to do?
I tie my boots on, and I collect my things – my camera, my notebook, my pack. I climb
over her, not really caring if she gets bumped or woken up. Like a vagrant, I start walking around
the train… looking for someplace safe to rest.
Jesus christ, not again. I think.
—
Over the next thirty hours, in my exile, I meet three bedazzled lesbians; a cholo with
some sick face tats; a man who just got out of federal prison; a whole bunch of boy scouts
coming home from Philmont; a teenager who can’t believe I’m not her age; and a bard who tells
me stories about standing with the forest and the Mohawks to fight the feds.
Figure 5.11 A bard from Upstate New York sings, plays and tells stories on the train.
(Photo by jen byers, June 2023)
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Figure 5.12 Looking out the window, somewhere in Kansas or Colorado, I think.
(Photo by jen byers, June 2023)
I am given snacks. I am called ‘baby,’ and I blush. I get beaming applause for my
harmonies of Wild Mountain Thyme. I sleep on a bench and smoke a candy cigarette under the
stars. I throw my feet up on the rails, and write the stories for another day.
Figure 5.13 Out the window, in the southwest desert.
(Photo by jen byers, June 2023)
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But the time I get to Florida, I have become so comfortable, again, with being in exile. I
like it here, in fact.
How perfect, really, for arriving in a place that doesn’t want me.
Into the Sunshine State
The Florida I have always known is a bastion of wonder. Weird cults. Cassadega.
Psychics and mystics. Manatees. Ghosts. Swamp witches. Beach gays. Baudrillard’s Disney.
Magic.
To me, Florida’s hot air smells like old moss and cryptic secrets. On an evening night,
when it’s soft and warm outside, when the light is just golden, and the breeze blows fireflies like
acrobats, I swear: you can see the shadows of faeries and lifetimes past. But, those stories are
for another day— another night. A fireside, really.
Through this deep magic, these sensual imaginings, I’ve wondered: how can this
otherworldly witchcraft, these psychics, this beauty co-exist so close to such cruel, prejudicial
policies, hellbent on our eradication?
As the blonde crone who runs my favorite pink witch shop says, “all the nuts rolled
down to Florida.”
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Figure 5.14 A rule for visitors to my favorite witch store in Florida.
(Photo by jen byers, July 2023)
Figure 5.15 Moss hangs in the trees in central Florida.
(Photo by jen byers, July 2023)
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As my friends tell me, laughing, “No, really. It’s different down here. Florida’s just
different.”
Despite beginning at the end of Appalachia, Florida’s landmass was not on Pangea. It
emerged from the ocean in the Ogliocene Epoch, about 23 million years ago, after the dinosaurs
went extinct. For context, Appalachia is 1.1 billion years old, and when it merged with the
Sunshine State, clays and sediments from its rivers came south, creating an extremely unique
landscape.
Florida, unlike any other state in the U.S., has clear springs with manatees, swamps.
Culturally, it’s American and Southern and Black and Hispanic and Catholic and Caribbean and
Jewish. It’s NASCAR and a paleta. It’s Patois and Yiddish. It’s got gay resort towns, Florida
man and sooooo many weirdos — which I note with beloved admiration.
But then, there’s The Villages.
I started coming down to Florida as a child, but I made my own friends here in
adulthood.
In 2016, my parents moved to The Villages, a retirement community in Central Florida
and a seriously Pro-Trump stronghold. I’d go to visit them, and I’d feel happy that they had
peers, fun activities and a home they loved, but being in their community was really jarring for
me. Between the Trump signs, blue lives matter flags, voter fraud and weird tyrades about
groomers, pedophiles, antifa and BLM, I knew I wasn’t welcome to show my full self.
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Figure 5.16 Villagers line up for their happy hour drinks.
(Photo by jen byers, July 2023)
So, during these visits, I began to explore. I met and made friends across the state: a fairy
princess near Miami; a recovered addict studying anthropology, determined to figure out how
best to cure other hungry ghosts; some queer glitter punks in Gainesville; Kathleen, from
Standing Rock, who would drive down for the winters; a crew of kink practitioners; and, of
course, the crone at the witch store.
On my trips, I would spend a few days seeing friends, and then I’d return to my parents
home. I would, always, be slapped with a strange, shuttering whiplash when I’d get back to The
Villages. I would get weird stares. I would get hit on, like a lot, by septuagenarians. Old men
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would salivate at me, and old women would look at me like I was the devil incarnate. Did you
know that, down here, having tattoos means you do porn? No, ma’am, I did not know that. But it
really does explain a lot.
I was always shook by the dissonance: the beautiful, lush swamps against the absolutely
normie bullshit. I don’t know why you would want this: the freshly developed conformity. The
neatly ordered kitsch. All the damn monuments to dead Republicans.
Figure 5.17 Seating arrangements in The Villages SeaBreeze Rec center.
(Photo by jen byers, July 2023)
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Figure 5.18 An inspirational quote at the SeaBreeze Rec Center.
(Photo by jen byers, July 2023)
Figure 5.19 More seating at the SeaBreeze Rec Center.
(Photo by jen byers, July 2023)
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As Milan Kundera explains in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” kitsch is “the
absolute denial of shit, in both the literal and the figurative senses of the word; kitsch excludes
everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence.”
“The Unbearable Lightness of Being” was a novel I clung to in high school – an attempt
to survive being a queer kid under my parents’ roof, until I really couldn’t take it anymore. It
critiques totalitarian and authoritarian Soviet policy, from the perspective of an artist, a
journalist, an academic and a doctor – pretty much everything I wanted to be when I was little. I
found it funny how much of its critiques still play well today, towards The Villages – a place
who has made its entire ideology on Red, White and Blue Blood Amurrica, thoroughly
disavowing all them damn Commies.
See, demographically, it’s folks like the residents of The Villages – right wing, elder,
white – who are the key voting blocs for Trump and DeSantis. It’s them, the most so-called
American among us, those who are doing their best to Make America Great Again, who want to
turn up the Freedom and… make life a living hell for the rest of us. I think growing up with
politics like this is what gave me comfort, salvation in exile, in the first place.
In the”Unbearable Lightness,” Kundera explains that, “whenever a single political
movement corners power, we find ourselves in the realm of totalitarian kitsch.” He explains that
“in the realm of totalitarian kitsch, all answers are given in advance and preclude any questions.
It follows, then, that the true opponent of totalitarian kitsch is the person who asks questions.”
And, well, there’s nothing I really love more than questions.
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On this most recent trip to The Villages, I wondered, aloud, why people were still flying
Confederate flags. I asked what it would take to tear them down, like the statues. I wondered,
loudly, in public, why a whole bunch of sunburnt Europeans hated immigrants so damn much. I
asked So, just how many of y’all went to January 6th?
Per Milan Kundera, “A question is like a knife that slices through the stage backdrop and
gives us a look at what lies hidden behind it.” And, there are few things The Villagers want less
than to have to open their skeleton’d closets and self-examine their impact and incongruences.
If you can imagine. I did not go over well. In the kingdom of kitsch, I thus became a
monster.
—
The disgust I faced was not new to me. And nor were its consequences.
See, so many of us queers folks, at one point or another become estranged from our
families and end up homeless or housing insecure. A lot of it starts when we’re teens, or
younger. Mine started around the time I found Kundera, in my family’s previous kingdom of
kitsch.
As I mentioned before, I’m from the generation of non-binary folks for whom eating
disorders were our puberty blockers, and we used starvation and DIY methods to cut out the
curves growing on our bodies.
In the early 2000s, before “they/them” or “genderqueer” was well known, many of us
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who suffered from classic signs of gender dysphoria would be sent to the usual, or even, a
less-well-known form of conversion therapy: eating disorder units. These therapists did their
best to make us okay with our bodies and our womanhood. But, literally none of them asked if
we were, in fact, women at all. It was that negligence, that erasure, that confusion that rooted
a pain so deep, in me at least… all I could do was hurt. The very paradigm itself hurt.
Back then, there was no escape, I felt. The pain was thorough, and it was all
encompassing. I tried anything to get it out – I’d cut, I’d starve, I’d cry and get upset. But,
after a while, when I got upset, I’d get hit. When I got hit, I’d get angry. When I got angry, my
family would get more angry, authoritarian.
It got so bad.
My story is so, so common.
See, some of us get kicked out of our homes for being different; some of us run away;
a lot of us don’t really understand where our choice began and their violence ended. Queer
and trans youth, especially, are at risk, and I’ll speak for myself in saying that I haven’t really
felt “safe” in my family home since I was 14 or 15 – when the clarity of my girl crushes and
my dysphoria became real evident.
That pattern of expulsion continues, to this day, in The Villages, in Florida, in the
Greater United States, in all the places that want us out. It’s patterns like this – of entire
communities being systematically rejected from public life – that have so many of us reeling.
How the hell has our private horror become law?
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In many ways, this is what I came down to Florida to figure out.
But, you see, I had questions. And, as I’ve said, questions are the enemy of kitsch.
Under totalitarian kitsch, Kundera says, anything that threatens its political ideology is
“banished for life,” and so was I, from The Villages.
I write the rest of this tale, like Kundera himself, from exile.
Figure 5.20 The way out of The Villages. (Photo by jen byers, July 2023)
July 2023: Salvation
Like a good little gay, the first thing I did after getting kicked out was go dancing.
I left The Village and headed into Gainesville, a college town about two hours north of
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Orlando. It’s a blue city, and it’s home to the University of Florida, which has been a major site
of dispute for curriculum bans, protests and free speech repression. While UF has lost
professors, faculty and funding for diverse student programs, queer and trans organizers in the
area have stayed committed to providing a safe haven for LGBTQ+ folks and other targeted
groups.
The City of Gainesville has a history of being home to punks and queer bbs. And, in the
larger anti-trans crackdown, the area’s become a bit of a refuge and a site of resistance in the
state.
That's exactly what it felt like for me.
Florida is different. Florida is super weird. Florida is queer as hell.
On a hot July morning, I visit with Otis, a queer ecologist and land manager for public
parks. They were born and raised in Florida, and we met at a Queer Cuntry night they organized
— a high femme, Shania pink, karaoke and line dancing haven for Central Florida’s LGBTQ+
community.
The morning after we danced too hard, I met them at a coffee shop, just a few moments
after it began to suddenly downpour. We spoke about their parents, Boomers who made it pretty
difficult for them to transition, and we talked about the generational power structures at play.
“It’s so triggering, having to relive this again. Being hated. Watching the kids be so
hated,” I said. “It’s fucked up to be an adult and be still going through this.”
“You’re telling me,” Otis replied. And we both stared quietly, solemnly at our iced
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lavender oat milk lattes.
We sat there for a minute, trying to sweat out our sleepiness. We talked a little more shit
about Boomers, wealth concentration, trauma and the reality that literally none of us will ever
afford to buy a house – adding poverty and landlords to exile. Ugh.
“It’s like they’re calling in the apocalypse and building an arc only for themselves. It’s
like they’re determined to bring the end of the world with them,” they said, referring to the
suburbs-core, normie-posh retirement communities guzzling carbon, raising land prices and
voting in all the hatred.
“What’s the world going to be like after they’re gone? Are they ever even going to go?”
I laughed, reflecting a little too hard on the fact… that the Boomer’s life span is about 79,
while LGBTQ+ folks were likely to live about 20 years less than that, and trans women have an
average lifespan of about 35.
“So, what? We’ll get about ten years after they’re gone?” They said.
And I stared at the floor.
“You think we can fix all their bullshit in time?”
“Probably not, but we’re basically queer elders now. We’ve got to try,” said Otis. I
nodded.
If Spike is an elder at 23, so are we.
Otis and I are both in our 30s. We both grew up without elder LGBTQ+ mentorship, in
part because so many Boomer and Gen X gays were lost from HIV/AIDs. But, transness has
exploded with the younger generations, and they make us so happy to see.
“Fucking hell. We’ve gotta protect those kids.” I said.
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They nodded.
And then we sat for a while, listening to the rain together.
* * *
Eventually, the sky cleared. Otis checked in with his pup, a sweet mutt, and asked her.
“So, do you want to go on a walk?”
Of course, the pup cheered up — the W word.
They turned to me, “Want to see the real Florida? Nature always beats the blues.”
I nodded, and we shared directions to a forest preserve they take care of.
Figure 5.21 Welcome to the forest preserve, location hidden to protect source request
for anonymity. (Photo by jen byers, July 2023)
When we get into the woods, we’re greeted by crickets, birds and chirping bugs. We
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collect our things – hats, bandanas, sunscreen, water, waterproof bags – and walk through the
wet grass, ankle-high, soft and squishy. It feels comforting, like it would catch me if I fell,
fainted or melted — an honest possibility in the delirious heat.
“Florida is a tinderbox,” Otis says, stopping us on the path.
To one side of the path is an overgrown landscape. The bushes have grown so tall and
thick above our heads, we can’t see through them. It feels ominous, in a way – like a place,
perhaps, for some predator to lay and wait.
Figure 5.22 An uncleared, overgrown, fire prone area of the forest preserve.
(Photo by jen byers, July 2023)
To the other side, is a much clearer landscape. The tallest plants hit about knee high,
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low beneath the tall trees and lots of space in the middle ground. You could see a deer or
person coming. You could see the colors, the shapes, the difference. By contrast, it’s a relief.
Figure 5.23 A cleared and prescribed burn-treated area of the forest preserve.
(Photo by jen byers, July 2023)
“We burned this side in February,” Otis says, pointing to the clear view. “This side…
hasn’t been burned in a few years. You see the difference?”
I nodded.
“Fire’s a natural occurrence in nature, but it’s been suppressed in the U.S. since 1935.
There were a bunch of fires in the Pacific Northwest, and then they just passed these
sweeping policies to suppress fires and burns across the country.” Otis tells me.
Before that, prescribed burns were a key tactic to take care of the land, practiced for
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thousands of years by Indigenous people, as in line with traditional ecological knowledge.
During the bans, renegade stewards and farmers lit burns in secret, still, leaving tire tracks and
matchsticks deep into wildfire territory. Over the past few years, there’s been a more public
widespread revival of these skills, but the damage of overgrowth is huge to overcome.
“There’s like 50 to 100 years of fuel accumulation. But, the ecosystem needs fire. There
are plants that need to burn,” says Otis. “They’ve evolved for constant change, to be resilient to
it, but also like to promote it… Everyone here is highly flammable.”
They take me to the ground, to show me a tiny plant that looks kind of like a firecolored loch ness monster.
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Figure 5.24 Hooded pitcher plants. (Photo by jen byers, July 2023)
“These are hooded pitcher plants, and they’re non-binary icons, like all carnivorous
plants are,” they smile. “There’s a lot of meanings to the word queer, and queerness occurs in
nature, but it’s not abnormal. It’s just part of things. It’s found in every species in nature.”
They point to the plant, which eats insects. “It’s queer because it doesn’t fit into
our definition of plants as autotrophs, while animals are heterotrophs.”
The hooded pitcher plant needs fire to reproduce, and so do other plants on the
ground.
“After burn, everyone gets a fresh shot to shoot back up, and so you don’t get a
dominant species.” Otis explains that, during fire suppression, some plants can’t grow or
reproduce and have to wait for a fire to come. Those plants “tend to have really resilient seeds
that can withstand or even trigger to germinate from fire.”
When an ecosystem is fire suppressed, opportunistic plants, like oaks, can move in, and
the mid growth level can also become so overgrown, ground plants can lose access to sunlight.
But, their seed resilience serves them, and they’re able to survive even decades of suppression.
It reminds me of how the Boomers, moving in for cheap land, are snuffing everyone
else out. The resilience reminds me of us.
“If you had maybe 30 years of fire suppression, these ground plants might not have
access to sunlight for 25 years. You’d see the populations like greatly diminished, but you
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would see them regenerate from the seed bank after fire,” Otis tells me.
I think about the decades, centuries of suppression LGBTQ+ and other oppressed
communities have faced. And I think about how so many people came out during the fires of
2020, the panic of COVID. Could these crises have, like a wildfire, cleared a way for our
growth? Our connection? Our resurgence?
I ask just that to Otis. They smile. Not all political ecosystems have welcomed
that fire, those changes, the new growth.
“Florida is a tinderbox,” they remind me.
Otis begins to teach me how to manage land that’s overgrowth-thick for a burn. “Ahead
of the wildfire, or ahead of a prescribed fire, you go in and remove the opportunistic trees that
have taken advantage of fire suppression… You make room for the suppressed communities to
blossom and thrive, and you cut back the overgrowth, and the fire takes its course.”
They smile. This methodology, of course, inspires their organizing.
Otis sees party planning and community gathering to be a key part of surviving
Florida’s political repression — an overgrowth of dangerous conservatism, comparable to
the dry, flammable pine needles saturating the forest. Though they’re not sure how the
political situation will change, or what a proverbial political wildfire might look like, they’re
practicing protective tactics in their community, like hosting Queer Cuntry night.
“We just carve out these little spaces where the rest of us can thrive.” Otis says.
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“Obviously, organizing resistance is incredibly important, but I don’t think that partying is
frivolous. You can’t organize with people that you don’t know or trust to keep each other
safe. We have to have places where we can connect, and we have to keep each other alive,
honestly.”
The grief over Florida’s political situation fills the air as thick as the humidity. Thunder
rolls in the background. “You know, if sorrow and isolation take us out, we won’t be around to
organize,” Otis says, very seriously.
“We need each other more than ever.” Their voice gets softer, somber. “The sorrows have
taken people from us, and so I think it’s really important to lift each other up with joy and
protect each other from that.”
“I think creating spaces where people can lay eyes on people who share their identities
is incredibly important,” Otis says. “Cultivating spaces for queer joy and for connection and
creative collaboration, in whatever community you’re organizing in, is incredibly important.
We can’t do it alone.”
I look at the ground and squish my feet in the soft mud, nodding. Hearing this, I almost
want to cry. It is lonely as hell out here, trying to investigate, fight and find the stories to explain
it all. I feel less scared, being around Otis, but I also feel more intimidated — this repression,
this violence is actually real. It’s not just in my head. They see it, too. They’re also hurting.
We’re not alone or psycho. We are doing what we can to survive, connect and provide solace for
other folks to grow.
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Otis and I sit in silence for a few minutes, just kind of processing it all. In true queer
fashion, shit has gotten really emotionally intense and vulnerable, and we’re trying to move
through it, together.
I tell Otis thank you about a million times, and I do my best to make them feel my
gratitude. It is horrible, absolutely, to feel how real this is. But it is a bit better to be in hell with
friends — it feels more possible to fight your way out, when you’re not just all alone.
As the afternoon sun takes over, we finally part ways. I spend a few minutes collecting
sounds of the forest, so lush and heavy, saturated with the south and life.
I look through the side that’s been prescribed a burn, and I see so much growth,
difference and biodiversity. I see that side that’s been overgrown and suppressed, thick with
leaves and needles, and I fear for what could happen in a lightning storm, wildfire or worse. I
begin to pray for fire, and welcome it.
“Florida’s a tinderbox,” echoes in my head, and I start back
towards town.
Clearing out a space for us.
I drive for a while after leaving the forest, until I realize I don’t have anywhere to go.
Like I said, my parents kicked me out. And, while I have this Subaru to keep me covered, it’s
not like I want to spend my night in a car.
I pull over to check Instagram. I don’t know what else to do. I scroll through pictures of
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stories, messaging friends to say I miss them, trying to ignore how bad this exile has started to
feel.
When I get to one story, for my collar daddy in Portland (yah, like for people, not
dogs), I see a flier: Fundraiser for Oli’s Top Surgery! Drag Show, tonight, Florida. My eyes perk
up, folks are still doing drag?! In this climate? Omg, I’ve got to go.
I plug the address into my GPS, and I realize it’s about two hours away, but it starts in
three. Holy shit, a miracle, I think. It’s almost like the swamp gods are smiling upon me. They
want this to happen. I rev the engine and drive.
When I arrive at the venue, back in an industrial park of a city I don’t know too well, I
try to figure out my outfit. I was just in a damn forest, and now I’ve got to go to a club. Fuck,
what can I do?
I take my t-shirt off, and throw it in the back; it’s so muddy and downright nasty. I clean
off my boots and change my socks. I tie my hair into pigtails, and decide to just throw a denim
jacket over my binder. I think, with my silver chains and knife earrings, I’ll just look like a hot
goth — like, literally. A humid, sweaty goth who was not made for this heat.
I touch up my makeup, using black mascara to create a smokey eye, and I leave my car
to walk in, towards the venue. Everyone around the parking lot looks so much like me. They’re
also in black, and some have chains and leashes around their necks. I smile hello, and blush. I
think I’m in the right place.
When I walk in, I’m met by so much color. Purple walls, pink hair, blue lipstick. The
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girlie at the register smiles, and asks for my ID. I hand it over and giggle. I didn’t realize this
was being held at a kink store.
On display are ropes, collars, muzzles, handcuffs, ball gags and, like, buttplugs, lol. Some
even have a furry tail on them. I might be too bashful for this. I look around the room and realize
that some of the patrons have dog masks on, black and red leather. I see one of them has a leash
on their neck, being held by someone else. I am so blushing. But, honestly, they look cool as hell.
I got up to a giant man who looks like he owns the place. He does. Literally. “Oh, hi,” I
say. “Um, I’m a journalist. I’m actually working on a story about queer folks in Florida. And I
was wondering if I could photograph the show.”
The man looks me up and down. I’m not sure what he is going to say, and I’m telling
you, he's a giant. “Well, what do you want to write about?”
I get nervous. “I’m mostly looking into how the policies lately are hurting people. And I
want to try and have some fun, for once, because the research has been a lot. This seems like
fun.”
The man softens pretty quickly. “Of course,” he says. “You seem nice. This is my place,
but let me introduce you to tonight’s host… you’ll have to ask them.”
I nod, say thank you and wait, perusing the ball gags while he fetches the host.
In a few moments, a little alien appears before me. Like, really. A sweet angel, with
white face paint, a shiny pleather bodysuit with a wide, pointy collar, KISS-like makeup and
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tall, platform leather boots says “hi.”
“I’m Oli. They/them pronouns. Master Cecil said you wanted to talk?”
Figure 5.25 Oli, or Creature, MC’s the drag show. (Photo by jen byers, July 2023)
I smile. They look so cool! “I also use they/them. They/she if you want I guess. Um.
Yeah. My collar maker friend said there was a drag show here, and I’m doing a story about
Florida’s queer scene, and I just… I’d love to take pictures, if that’s allowed.”
Oli looks me up and down. I can tell they’re suspicious, but curious in a nice way. We
talk for a while, I get vetted, and they eventually say it’s okay for me to stay. I get my camera
and sit for the show.
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7
Figure 5.26 A collection of photos from the drag show. 7
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Over the next two hours, I’m surrounded by dancing, costumes and applause. The care
and encouragement the audience gives each performer fills the room with love, like a big hug.
Each high kick, sashay and flip is rewarded with the glee. The room feels warmer, not like the
humid heat outside, but like being a small plant in a sunbeam, like a fire on a chilly night, like a
hearth. It feels like arms are around me, holding me and reminding me how okay it is to myself,
silly, different, queer. I’m surrounded by people who look so unique, each unique in their style
and comportment, but all alike. We’re the “freaks,” the “demons,” the “mutants,” and tonight,
our powers, our magic is well on display. I begin to cry a little, in a good way.
A few minutes later, a drag performer finishes up. Oli turns to the audience. “Can you
believe how talented she is? And her mom is even in the front row! Can you believe it? A
supportive parent?!”
The crowd cheers. I cheer. I can’t believe it.
The mom stands up and smiles. She hugs Oli. “I’ll be all of your moms, if you want to.
The crowd cheers again, loud. Most of us need a mom.
123
Figure 5.27 Drag performers line up at the end of the show.
(Photo by jen byers, July 2023)
Blushing.
Eventually, the show is over, and we all pile out, back into the foyer, where all the ball
gags are. A pretty girl in a pink, frilly dress comes up to me, smiling. “I love your tattoos! What
are they about?”
I blush and begin to tell her stories about Medusa and banshees and the Oracle of
Delphi, how each of them made me feel less alone. She asks questions and shows me her
tattoos, too. It made me feel smitten.
She eventually asks me about what brought me to the show, and I shared my research. I
ask her if she notices much change for LGBTQ+ people in Florida.
“They’re leaving in droves,” she tells me. “I would leave, too But I just bought a house,
124
and.” She paused. “I just can’t afford to right now.”
Oli comes up to check on me. They have to fly to San Francisco next week for their top
surgery, but they want me to see the rest of the club first.
“What do you mean, the rest?”
“Oh, this is a dungeon.”
“A what?!”
“Yeah, c’mon.”
Wide eyed, I follow Oli into the other room, and they tell Master Cecil to give me the
tour.
Into the dungeon.
Master Cecil first opened the dungeon to protect his friends from getting raped.
“Little pixie girls, like your size and with your bubbly kind of personality kept coming to
me and saying they’d go on dates with new people… and would end up getting raped.” He looks
down at me with elder’s eyes, and his voice is deep and somber. “I just didn’t like that very
much. So I wanted to make a place where they could be safe. To experiment with people and get
to know them. I think everyone deserves that.”
I nod. “Of course,” I say, and my voice trembles more than I’d like it to.
He welcomes me into a room, with purple walls and concrete floors and lofted ceilings.
125
A giant decorative dragon is hanging on the wall in the back, and his eyes are sparkling, like
Master Cecil’s. The lights are deep and moody — the colors of mischief itself. As I let the
mood cover me, I feel morphed — like, Jezebel in the flesh, coming home to roost. A loved one
would laugh later — Scorpio in a dungeon? Finally, your powers are peaking.
Master Cecil leads me around the room, pointing out toys he’s built and bought. He’s
gigantic — a real-life wizard, with curly gray hair and a smile like Cheshire’s, more mythic than
this world deserves. His voice, warm yet booming, fills the gaps in my shyness, and he jokes
about what each… station… is best used for.
We come to a spider web made of chains, crossed on a wooden frame. He smiles with
mischief. “This one’s right under the A/C, so,” he points, “it stays really cool. Not to give you
ideas or anything, but. It’s a real good place for a warm, sweaty body, almost at its limit.”
I imagine the relief. Like a true Victorian widow, I’ve been so sick from Florida’s heat.
The in and outside, from stifling humidity to freezing A/C has been sending shivers down my
body this summer. My sweat has been crystalizing into ice, and I stopped being able to eat real
food days ago. I nod, wishing this chain-linked Shelob would take me and trap me in her web,
too. What would it be like, I think, to not be able to think for a minute. To just be a body, and
not a ball of sick anxiety. I blush, again. How aspirational.
The tour continues.
Through the room, there are two wrought metal cages. A bootstand. Two wooden
apparatuses, like monkey bars, almost, for tying people up. There are massage tables, with wax
126
to pour, knives to scratch and plastic to wrap — to make sure you don’t get blood anywhere.
There’s a spanking bench, for the bad ones; and a silver restraint hung from the ceiling, almost
like a meat hook, with a level for adjustable height. Finally, there’s couches and a patio, for
aftercare.
The moody lights flicker from purple to red, and I slowly take it all in. I pause at the
wooden monkey bars, and trace their form with my eyes — there’s rivets and hooks, for
looping and tying. There’s a rug underneath, soft… for kneeling, rope work and… whatever
else you’d need a soft rug for.
Master Cecil reminds us that there are a lot of rules for the club.
A few of them are simple:
- You’re not allowed to cum.
- You’re not allowed to touch anyone or do anything to anyone without asking.
- Consent is absolutely essential. And you will be thrown out if you don’t respect it.
- There’s a code for comfort:
Green means we’re good.
Yellow is I’m alright, but can you please slow down.
Red means STOP.
And MAYDAY means I NEED HELP, NOW!
- There are volunteer supervisors, or dungeon masters, around the room, who will watch
and check in, if they think something might be unsafe or going wrong.
- There’s political literature by the exit, y’know, just in case you want to try and close the
127
gaping hell pit that’s become the Florida state government.
I smile and say thank you. I appreciate this orientation, a requirement for all new
visitors. It was developed over the last fifteen years of the dungeon’s operation and is constantly
under review, accommodating for new updates in the queer, kink and radical moral standards.
For once, since getting to Florida, I feel comfort. Safety.
And that reminds me to ask. “Have things changed a lot since DeSantis came in?”
Master Cecil nods solemnly. “The acceptance has always waxed and waned, though
right now… the climate is…. scary.
“We’re above board enough that the cops and sheriffs know about us, and we’ve got a
good relationship with them. That’s one reason we can’t get too political. I gotta stay diplomatic
and whatnot. But, I’m nervous about your story. Not that I can’t trust you… I know I can. I just
don’t want anything to go too public and hurt us. It’s dangerous right now. Are you open to
talking about that.”
I nod, “Of course,” eager but with sadness. “The last thing I’d want to do is hurt
anyone.” I pause and wink to lighten things a bit. “Well, not without consent.”
He laughs and gives me a fist bump. “See, you get it. Now, go inside and have fun.”
I curtsey and shake his hand, blushing from my eyeliner to my boots.
128
Oh, uh oh. My turn.
After the tour, Oli is almost laughing, all mischievously, at me.
“Is there anything you want to try? You can just ask.”
“I can just ask? For whatever I want?”
They nod with enthusiasm. I blush. I know exactly what I want.
“Um, well,” I whisper, my voice instantly getting softer. Too shy to say it. “What if, um.”
They’re totally looking at me, all excited.
“Well, um,” I giggle a little, nervous but kinda happy about it.
“Do you think someone could tie me up? Like.. so tight all my thoughts go away?
That’s all I really want these days. For my thoughts to go away.”
I have seen too much on this story. This job. In my life. I am exhausted.
Oli smiles. “Yeah, absolutely. You should ask him, over there. He always gets good
feedback with folks. And he’s super respectful, people say.”
You mean I can just ask for that?
“Go ahead. Go talk to him.” Oli points at a man on the couch, with long braided hair
and big brown eyes.
129
“I don’t know if I can do that!” I squeal.
They goad me.
Oh no, okay. I guess it’s gonna happen. Fine.
I shyly go up to the very handsome man on the couch. I’m not just with Oli anymore; a
few other folks are following us.
My face on absolute fire, I nod and curtsy and smile at him, this man I’ve never met
before. I try to keep up eye contact, but I mostly just end up staring at the floor and my shoes.
“Oh, um, hi, sir. It’s really nice to meet you. My friends said I was supposed to ask you
this, um.” The entire world has collapsed into this one moment and question. I am dying. I ask
anyway, “Would you mind tying me up so tight I can’t hear my thoughts anymore?”
He smiles, very polite. He smiles wide. His smile is very pretty and very warm, like the
kindness of the applause earlier. “I would love to, but I don’t have any rope.”
“Oh, that’s no problem,” I say, mortified. I’ve just been embarrassed by the most
personal question of my life.
Like magic, from the crowd, a rope appears. “Will this one do?” The crowd
asks him.
I blush AGAIN, oh no, omg.
He smiles, again, wider this time. “Yeah, that one looks pretty good. Let’s do it.”
130
Oh, fuck. “Well, okay,” I say. And we walk into the other room.
No thoughts, only thots.
My new friend lets me pick which set up I want to use, and I walk us over to the wooden
and steel structures – the one that kind of looks like monkey bars. The two of us and Oli and a
few people from the crowd sit down on the carpet underneath. He begins to ask what I’m
comfortable with. Everyone reminds me, again and again, that I’m the one who’s in control of
the situation, and if I don’t want or like something, we can stop anytime. I nod, with gratitude for
the reassurance. This is a level of care, consent and control that, frankly, I’m not used to. I
become almost overwhelmed, in a sweet way, with emotion.
We decide on a tie, where my hands are in front of me, clasped together. After all the
writing and research I’d been doing, I just…want to not have to write, to check my phone, to
type, or again, to think, for a while. I want to quiet my brain, my fears, my panic. I tell
everyone in the circle that that’s my goal, and they all nod, in support.
“Yeah, you’re not alone in not wanting to think,” Oli tells me. They smile a half smile
and shrug. Everyone else in the circle does, too. I’m definitely not alone, and that company
makes some sadness fall off.
Over the next twenty minutes, my new friend ties my arms in front of my chest, criss
crossing the rope over my back and waist and shoulders. He asks if I can take most of my
clothes off, so the rope wouldn’t slip, and I say yes. As I'm just in my black binder and panties,
131
people keep telling me, in the most gentle, kind and affirming ways, that I look so pretty.
“Are you sure you haven’t done this before?”
“The rope looks so nice with your tattoos!”
“OMG, this would make for such a nice photo! You’ve got to model for photo night!”
As the kindness and the shibari ties close in on me, the weight of so much shame, fear,
stress, exile and political hatred fall off. With each pull, tightening the ties, I feel lighter and
lighter and less afraid.
After he finishes the body tie, my new friend asks if it’s okay to put me in a suspension,
where the rope is tied from the top and meant to dangle me above the floor.
In a cloud-like state, I nod, smiling. I almost already feel like I’m flying. It'd be nice to
be in the air, too.
He gently helps me to my feet and starts wrapping the rope on the wooden structure’s
eyelets. He asks me to lean down, and as I do, the last of my worries fall away. I’m airborne,
poised and almost dancing. The group around us “oohhs,” telling me how cool this looks. They
reassure me of how safe I am, and they remind me how I can be let down as soon as I’m ready.
Before my mind goes blissfully blank, I remember Barnaby’s words, calling people like
me and my new friends so many horrible names. I remember the abuse I suffered at home, just
for being different like this. I remember how many of us are thrown out, again and again, for
132
standing up to hatred. I hear one more angry echo, in my head, of the vast calls for eradicating
people like us, and I feel their attempt to control us shake through me.
I am surrounded by people I’ve just met, who are treating me with the utmost
love and compassion.
I am being held with kindness, care and gentle love.
I am in control of myself, my body and my limits.
I can give and revoke consent whenever I wish.
As I realize and embody those values, my mind quiets, and the pain goes all away.
I’m tied up in a dungeon in Ron DeSantis’s Florida, and I feel safer here than I ever have
in my mother’s home.
8
Figure 5.28 Roses. 8
133
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Abstract (if available)
Abstract
Turncoat: The Origin Stories is an experimental work of journalism and a critique of harmful patterns in historic and modern-day reportage. It uses techniques pulled from community-centered journalism, autoethnography, movement journalism, Indigenous research methods and reparative journalism to critique the biases often underlying the values of “objectivity” and “neutrality.” Turncoat offers a more caring and culturally competent ethical compass for reporters, by demonstrating a way forward. Turncoat concludes with embedded reporting from queer and trans communities in Florida, during the summer of 2023. It highlights stories of drag and kink, queer ecology and trans-led resistance to eradication.
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Asset Metadata
Creator
byers, jen
(author)
Core Title
Turncoat: the origin stories
School
Annenberg School for Communication
Degree
Master of Arts
Degree Program
Journalism (Specialized Journalism)
Degree Conferral Date
2023-12
Publication Date
12/15/2023
Defense Date
12/14/2023
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Los Angeles, California
(original),
University of Southern California
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Tag
activism,America,Americana,anarcha-feminism,anarchism,anarchy,antifascism,anti-racism,autoethnography,Care,community centered journalism,community-centered journalism,critique,cultural competency,decolonization,Drag,embedded reporting,Feminism,Florida,genderqueer,gonzo journalism,journalism,kink,LGBTQ+,media ethics,media theory,movement journalism,neutrality,new journalism,non-binary,OAI-PMH Harvest,objectivity,phenomenology,Queer,queer ecology,queer theory,reparative journalism,solutions journalism,storytelling,Train,trans,transgender
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Tags
activism
Americana
anarcha-feminism
anarchism
anarchy
antifascism
anti-racism
autoethnography
community centered journalism
community-centered journalism
critique
cultural competency
decolonization
embedded reporting
genderqueer
gonzo journalism
journalism
kink
LGBTQ+
media ethics
media theory
movement journalism
neutrality
new journalism
non-binary
objectivity
phenomenology
queer ecology
queer theory
reparative journalism
solutions journalism
storytelling
trans
transgender